the pigeon...

A large lonely 3 storey building , with 7 people on the 3rd floor towards the extreme corner, 22 cubicles with a few filled! that's where i make my bread and butter :) The rest of the place is unoccupied... It used to be a large office once, belonged to one of the largest telecom provider. A place, where you could rarely hear the sound of the pin drop for that was masked by the noisy crowd working together to support customers across the globe. Things change!

The monsoons have just arrived, a fresh mild shower in the morning has cooled down the climate with the fresh fragrance of the wet mud. Work seemed to be a little less, and i move out for a short walk on the long corridor. Silence is scary sometimes, but at times it does take you closer to the beauty of creation. There ain't any thoughts on my mind except for the last line of a mail from someone young! This thought seems to fade away with the random movements of this 2 legged small creature who's engaged in its own world. Circling, looking at the sky, occasionally making a sound which i cant hear as its on the other side of the large glass window. The separator. I guess that is necessary for without this it would have flown away. The pigeon.

Someone had once told me as a kid, that these birds have an ability of sensing the silent places. Places where there is peace. Yes you do find pigeons in noisy places yet that would be a rare sight! How do they sense it? A miracle I guess...

I have seen pigeons everywhere. Have never observed them so closely though. However I have always seen them in clusters or pairs. Rarely with the younger ones! I guess the parents leave their younger ones to their fate, like the tortoise at the sea who come to the shore during the breeding season, lay eggs, go back to the sea and never turn back. Some new born tortoises survive their fate and some become a meal.

Now that is so rude of nature from one perspective since the parents don't take responsibility. On the other hand nature is probably preparing them for a stiff survival! ... Reasons based on our comprehensions I guess .. that's the limitation of this mind though.

I wish I could tell you the reasons for all my actions yet I think that will be ahead of time. Quite often we may not be in a state where we might start accepting a different perception for we tend to be in deep love with our own perceptions. As the bird grows a little older the parent bird pushes the kid down. The small bird with not so well grown feathers is scared to death. It starts hating the mother bird for such an action. It resists for its afraid of its own death.

The mother rarely cares. It forces the bird, pushes it down from the highest point, aware of the freshly grown wings. The parent probably knows that it wont die and the wings are strong enough! ... Fear, hate and freedom! .. The bird flies free and then it starts seeing worlds larger than its own nest. Grows stronger in time. Some do fly back home ..

Now what would happen if the parent bird tries to protect the small kids at all times? What if the love is so much that a little distance is enough to break things off? May be you have an answer dear...

The parent bird has to push, hate and go away never seeing the face of the kid to make it stronger. May be that's a reason. With the parent beside, the kid would have never flown!

I wonder if you would read all this, even if you did I wonder if this all makes any sense to you .. even if it did I wonder if it percolates into your thoughts, and you realize what made you write the last line "...don't worry about me. I will try to make this my last mail". Every child does ... I would have! Yet...

Let the free pigeons, remind you of your infinite potential, make you stronger ... that's the wishes of this hypothetical dad... I must confess, being a dad is a tough game. I wonder how the one I have, managed to play it so well... :)

37 years! isnt this enough?

Times are those when we impose and then at moments we are imposed upon. My story… Your story… Our story… keeps on building as we live each day. Sometimes we become part of the stories of people around, without any defined role though. Something similar to that of being a guest actor for a while. I have had the advantage of being one. And this movie would probably end in the next 18 hours with my guest appearance. Doctors confirmed it this morning!

Days back uncertain things never used to be interesting, until the element made me realize the beauty that this uncertainty beholds. Day is this when the certainty which I loved so much stands so close, yet it hurts. I am certain, so is everyone, so is he, for he knows its 18 hours of life remaining. How would you feel if you ever were in that state? The seconds don’t pause. The fact that I cant talk to him anymore nor can he have a another conversation again, aint convincing enough even if that is so certain.

Never thought we would be close, the day I first saw him, for he had rarely acknowledged my presence. Yet I had the privilege of being acknowledged by his sweetheart :) ..

"Well, we had a wish to go on a trip to visit all the pious places when we grow old. I worked as a head mistress for a school, we built. That was interesting. Cooking had been a past time always, and he liked it too! His days were all embedded with drugs, patients, hospital. He’s been a doctor for 30 odd years. Poor only if he could use his knowledge to treat himself ... We are having a beautiful life. It was never without pains though, yet combating the pains has a charm of its own.

I am not a born Tamilian but my birthplace was ... hence the Tamil language became a sort of mother tongue. So did the Tamil appetite and the Tamil dishes. In my times, we used to get married at a really early age. When I was your age I had a family" ... .. .

The story goes on as we talk and unconsciously this guy becomes a part of their story.

I was married away to him 37 years ago. Never got the chance to move back to my home for I had none behind me. Everything was new for me. Little did I know the etiquettes of life, or for that matter living with a man I have never known. We had moved into a big house in a small place, a remote village located in the interiors of a south Indian state after my marriage. There were green paddy fields, un-tarred muddy roads unlike the ones we had in Bangalore. He was the eldest of 5 children. 3 sisters and a brother. His brother was a lot younger than I was. But sisters were more of my age with a little difference!

We all were kids of the fairly same age but for me, my roles increased a bit more. Everyone seemed to be close, yet there remained an empty inside always seeking for something else. Its not that I had married him beyond my own choice or marriage was imposed on me but something, I don’t know what always made me feel lonely.

Perhaps time had to play its game.

Being a daughter of not so rich parents, earning tits and bits to support my learning, fate had pushed me hard enough to see different stages of life. I had made a wish when I was young! Hehe something similar to a nice prince coming up to me and taking me away with him for ever. You know the Dream Prince! ..

Somehow it didn’t happen. But the other part of the wish which said, let me be a part of someone who needs me and that I do something for him did happen. I used to ask God to give me a chance to serve some one in my life for I had lost the chance to serve my own parents. God does play games, and now when I look back I realize HE had indeed given me the chance!

I lost my parents, but when I came over here, I got replacements. My mom-in-law didn’t like me much though, yet in my father-in-law I saw a caring father who cared for me even more than my own dad. Sailing through life aint easy for a girl always. I had to quickly transform my self into someone who had the traits of a mom, daughter and a wife. I remember of being of the same age as his younger brother, perhaps a little older ;) but had to take care of him. I had to feed him, carry him in my arms, for without this he never ate. Crazy he was, and at times when there was nothing, I kept thinking and wishing if someone had taken me into her laps and fed. That’s how you tend to feel good! Quite often dreaming and visualizing about the places you could have been lets you go far away from the present. You feel better and recharged.

That was the only way I could pull on probably. Well there were times when my mom-in-law was as rude, but it was this mans love which made me live on. Well you must be surprised to know that he did love me before we got married but never said it until we were married. He knew my brother, who was next to my father and before he expired my yet to be husband had promised to take care of me for the rest of his life. That wasn’t liked by my mother-in-law I guess. He could have married any girl, for he was a Doctor, and had a big family. I was just nothing. Had no family. Yet he embraced me, fighting all the resistive forces when there was none, by me. Never said a word. And that unspoken love has been driving me since.

He was there at all times with anything I ever did. I remember a particular instance. We were in Karnataka for a medical checkup, when the doctors said that going further we couldn’t have kids. That could have been a shock for the couple, but that day he held me tight as we were moving back home in the bus. He said, "... my dear, there should be a reason why we didn’t have kids, may be HE wants us to become parent to an orphan. If you don’t mind we can probably adopt someone. It’s just the time which would pass." That was my boyfriend.

Yeah, sometimes you don’t like the boyfriend to be too sweet though, and you make your own decisions. Heheh I did. In fact we both did. We decided to build a school, be parents not to one but to many, to all those who needed us. He was there too!

Support! Well he pushed himself harder each day to collect money for the school. I saw him pushing his luxuries down the priority list, for the sake of buying Black boards, benches and dusters for our school. He had handed me something which has taken over both of our lives...

I don’t have any regrets, it just that I have seen him serve people all time, and today the doctor himself doesn’t have a treatment for his own disease. His doctor friends have started failing. Post the accident on our trip to visit the temple in Southern India, there was a small injury on his leg which got gangrene. They severed it off. He smiled .. His kidney stopped functioning and they kept him on dialysis. Ears gave up and hes using this white device yet paying strong attention to your lip movements for all times you speak to comprehend what you are saying. Memory has started giving up... Food doesn’t go in ... He hasn’t been sleeping for a week.

I question isnt this suffering enough? Why doesn’t HE take him? What is pulling him back? Perhaps me.

"I loved you for 37 years, and i shall keep loving you hereafter and ever post my own extinction. I wish I could tell you this. I know I cant, I can’t hold you or go near you even if that is something you wish in your last breath, for I can’t see you living dead, for the moment I come to see you the love re-kindles your desire to stay back. You can’t leave this place with an unfulfilled desire. You think about how I would live post your departure, how selfish, can’t you for a while think that i shall not be able to die, leaving you helpless. Go, leave this world, I don’t love you, I cant see you dying each moment....." those were my last words to him.

And post that I never saw him for the next 18 hours. He woke up at the 18th hour searching, looked at everyone, perhaps searching for me. He realized I was not there ... and that he had to be gone. Breathed his last....

How do I tell you what it feels. I was so strong, never did a drop of tear flow down my eyes when he was there, and when he left. But now I feel so lonely. I feel guilty of myself to have deprived him of my love. He is there somewhere and is probably smiling, watching me cry and be lone .. waiting for him. Yet can i live like this? Can I? Perhaps that wouldn’t be just ....

This day, i decide to be reborn again as a child of eight and let go of the feeling which has been pushing me to leave this world. Travel back to the place i left 37 years ago, to Madanapalli, my birthplace, to the school i built, we built, where his memory remains... trying to fulfill our wish, the wish of a dead man and his alive wife.

What are you thinking dear? What is this love? What is this attachment? Why is there pain? And what did this man tell me? How did I become a guest?

Dear even I betrayed him in some sense, He wanted me to stay back from work, I consoled that if all would be fine and I would see him back in the evening … I knew it was the last time was touching him alive. “the doctors are experimenting on me, touch my heart, its hurting .. don’t go …” that was me hearing him and seeing him move to the certain.

I know I haven’t been able to do justice to the article not their story, expressions limited I guess. But then, every time I ponder upon the house, his memories and her words I think probably someone was right when this someone said "Entre lo que existe y lo que no existe, el espacio es el amor."

It means “Between that which exists and that which does not is the space called Love.”

37 years and moving :) ..... .... ... .. .

an unfolding experience

In the words of Albert “Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.”

Every other day you get up, think of something, come across something, you probably recite "I wish i had been through this"...

There's a time when you have got nothing at hand .. simply nothing .. none to share your ideas, none to speak to, idling away just thinking about how the days would be .. idling lone on the empty benches of the station surpassing midnights, standing still.. walking barefoot on the lone roads .. gazing at the crowd .. thinking ... ever searching for the elements of thoughts , the elements that would make great days ... even if the days at hand were darker than the nights ...

Words are just round to describe states, states of each second for each one counts to an experience. Hanging like the pendulum swinging amongst the uncertainity of things on one side bound closely to the dependent ones and to those fresh young dreams.. places .. and aspirations. Quite often it becomes insane as for every other question theres a blank space. And for every other aspiration theres a question mark. As if you are destined to be glued to the deserted ground and when you look up the sky is filled with free birds. Yet your state reminds "Dare you think of flying?"

With every passing minute the glue turns harder and your feet bound more! What would you do? Wonder if this could all end .. possibly end with me. Then theres the so called laws, the laws of karma which drag you back as you find no sense even in the end. Ahhhhh.... i wish i had words.

You cant continue living, glued on to the ground as it hurts. You cant possibly breathe, for everytime you look up to the sky, the free birds remind you of your state of being prisoned. You swing between freedom and bondage, till a point where the freedom once inspiring turns depressing. Theres nothing .. not even "why me?"

You cant stop living.. Can you? You search .. search for that element, even if thats mere thought. I have been a lil more than lucky though ..

The element stays all the while as you live. And everytime the element smiles, the smile propagates within you. The element interacts, shares, listens, comforts. The element redefines your perception of the glued state, and turns it into a state of deep contemplation in peace that has been defined for you to rest and breathe the fresh air, watching the birds tell you stories of where they have flown. And things change! You start feeling free.. empowered. Till the last day, it was suffocating and this day you wait for the birds to come over, tell you stories. You wait... for them to come back.. you live ..

The "turnaround element" that is, which even with no physical existence makes you live a little longer, makes you wait, makes you dream of great days .. and you start making wishes .. which you never dared ..

The wishes pile up to form a beautiful tree over a period of time. And with each passing day an unconscious belief takes over. A belief that it would happen. You would be there on the hilltop on a long drive with the setting sun ... A belief that drives you to live each day. Now as I look back I wonder how strong it was.. yet at this moment am convinced that belief does turn things. Makes you live, helps you surpass all possible pains ... everything .. Gives you a dream.

Days do come when the wish unfolds and you are amazed to see at how it does.

The sun milds down, never as hot and burning as it was 2 hours ago! things happen on time, it rains just enough to let go on the conversation... the moon, the common friend dissappears .. you stand on the edge of a cliff facing the setting sun with the wind blowing touching the face, sorrounded by green! you are made free of your priorites! ... wishes once placed on the wishtree seem to happen .... seems as if the script has been authored and things unfold the way it was .. the unfolding experience i call it!

The element stands beside embracing you like no one has done ever before .. yet with a distance .. it stares and wonders at your silence. The silence emerging from a reflection of the past, a time when you had nothing and the present, a time when you are gifted an ocean where a drop was all you seeked for. The heart cries with an unmasked joy .. lips go bound, tears dont roll for the elements smile propagate :) ....

At times you do fall in short of tears probably as life unfolds, and when things seem to end, subconsciously you might just be at a magnificient beginning. What say dear?

A billion things come into mind of which a million are unrelated, a hundred related but one being persistent, as to how would i ever if at all can, serve the element that made me free. Gifted a lifetime. Or is it that am destined to be indebted for life....

...a car, two baloons and a keyboard

Weird topic, a funny one making a little sense as to what might come in from the author! .. :) .. The way it came into my mind was also amusing. I had no idea it would be so... and that I would be writing this... even if it makes the least sense, for I got to empty this mind to be forked() a little more..

For all that I have been writing, some or for that matter most could have been instances similar to your span.. never wish this one becomes a component though! 25 days from this day i guess, the cell buzzed at 4:45 AM in the morning. "I think its all over ..." with some letter forming words the non documented part of the quoted text formed the sms. Someone close had sent it! ...

Imagine you are speeding on the fast lane towards the destination. The smooth rubbery eight lane roads are inviting in themselves! Music's plugged in. Thoughts of what would happen at the destination, starts taking shape. Eyes look straight and with any seeming gap, the adrenalin flow increases giving the car a due acceleration, taking over the peer! Its sure fun! ... Nothings on the mind but the destination .. the goal! You race...

In this ordered system, where the car's speeding and everything else is in sync a random chaos is introduced.. a small nail which hits the front wheel towards the left. Damage is not felt... you speed till the air is still inside!.. What next? Predictable! isnt it?

The voice seemed low, not as exciting, as this close friend of mine spoke ... "I am keeping fine dont worry. I need a hot wheels car, two balloons and a keyboard, i have everything else. Come soon if you can..". The pebble which took the poles down.

Quite often in the state when you are on the ground speeding fast enough constantly thinking of the destination, the random chaotic moments tend to come in and the distance is stretched .. I wonder if we got a right to ask why? At time what you think of, looks so close to you, yet the laws of uncertainty govern things so well that nothing is predictable, and the close oasis in the desert turns into a mirage!

Even then, i got to believe that the mathematical equations are an exception though .. and that God doesn’t play dice :) Things of chaos should move to order, or it could be quite possible that we fail to see order in the existing chaos. The perception has to be trained to adapt! Perhaps for now its just that the distance has increased .. a little more time .. little more ..

The child plays, runs, falls down, cries, smiles and runs again, while the parent just smiles in deep contemplation .. I guess this time the child is getting a little more tired .. heheheh :)

... caged!

Small time you find at the most unexcepted instances in the span and things you least expected, do happen! .. ofcourse with minimal relevance with what you might have once thought of! ... From amongst the haywired mix of things, I started off early in the morning, to move away from things. But where do I go without a destination? .. Walked up the road which took me to a rick, whose destination was the railway station! .. Picked up a platform ticket, got into the station hoping to see some random happenings or at least the travelers with some destination, unlike me who had none!... The crowd, mass, tourists failed to engage this mind, and like always, unplanned, i pushed off towards the bus stop! .. Picked up a random bus. When asked where i had to go, i said "take me to the end, where you stop. I will get down there".... Trying to move away .. run away from the real.. like a coward .. whatever!

Had no idea, i would be in the same place, i had come 12 years ago!.. amongst the green trees, animals around, where theres no noise but a silence...

A well planned and furnished house was in place for these guys! .. Unlike those small porticos in large storeyed buildings there was quite a lot of open space in the front of the house. Decorated with artificial trees and ropes tied amongst them, so that these guys could perhaps perform some acrobatics when they wanted to! .. At the end of the open space was a pool filled with water which could be used for drinking and playing! ... hee hee .. this was the kingdom of two creatures, resembling us in all ways apart from our civilized form! One of them was supposed to be a female and the other !! a male of course ;)... Their day unlike ours, wasnt that hectic. Theres no need to run. As if the time had stopped and all they ever wanted was around them! .. Were they content with all they had? Or were they waiting? ... even i got no idea .. for when I saw them for the first time, both of them were engaed with each other, playing and running around .. and this lasted for a short while till one of them looked at me. The dance stopped. They sat .. they walked towards me .. and stopped. Stopped to stare, at how free I was perhaps!.. hehehe... or stopped to see if I teased them for being caged .. or could be in the hope of getting some food like the other zoo visitors! I dont know what .. but there was something in these creatures .. a voice trying hard to break free ...

Amazing it is to look at one part of the coin where stray monkeys, dogs .. all those who never become successful pets, wander all their lives in search for food to survive, however remaining free to decide. On the other, those like these chimpanzees who have the privelege to become pets and are cared for so much, who live in those palacial well planned and built houses, tend to remain in an everlasting .. everlonging .. want for freedom.... Should I ask why? or should I assimilate?

Caged were the poor chimpanzee's, like a number of other creatures at nandankanan, a few looking at me, while the rest engaged in their loneliness.. perhaps hoping to be free someday .. a day where they could return to where they belong, running in the jungles, their homeland. Perhaps caged like me dear, in your thoughts waiting to be free as you embrace me in your arms some day .. hehehe .. It could never be. Some of these creatures would live this trapped life to an end .. always seeking to be free .. and it could be the same with me .. always thinking that a day might come where you might just embrace me! that would be a time... not yet. Trapped i am in the thoughts of yours, as they wonder at my actions, questioning why i aint free.. will your wide arms free me someday? .. that remains a question though .. Or is it that i am actually free within limits ?? since owning or containing could be a mere illusion they say ... ... for every time you tend to be free you will be bound and everytime you are bound you would want to be free .... a paradox though :) .. the MAYA!