The end of all duality

Sometimes when I'm too happy or too sad/distressed, I experience a beautiful moment of clarity. Someone inside me knocks at the heart and I hear this voice: "Hey! How are you enjoying the movie?" :)

From my early days, sometimes I wondered at my own existence and the purpose thereof. Probably every teenager goes through this phase. But for me, the difference was that it continued to be a vital question that I couldn't forget. Looking at my hand, I wondered, is this Me? Observing the fleeting thoughts in my mind, I wondered, is it I who is thinking? Then after many years, I came across the most beautiful description and it perfectly made sense to me!

When you are in the cinema, and the movie is going on in the dark, we feel strong emotion in the climaxes, chilling moments in the horror scenes, and even shed a few tears in the emotional parts. But we know it is a movie, we just enjoy all the experiences good or bad and if it was a good film, tragic or funny, we always end up saying with a smile and contentment that it was a good one! The real Me is like this screen, on which the movie is projected. If a small kid walks in while a movie is running and asks about the screen, we will end up pointing towards the ongoing cinema and the kid will think that it is the scene or the characters which is the screen. Which is not quite right. Yes, the scene and the characters are on the screen, but they are not the screen itself. Only when the lights are on, only then you can see the screen! The screen does not take part in any of the drama, it is the still ever-calm witness. It never gains or loses anything from the movie, but without it the movie will not exist. It is Existence itself, whereon one movie after another goes on playing, immersing the audience (the mind-body complex of the people sitting in the hall) with the scenes of the movie (sensual objects), making them laugh, cry, despair. But itself, the screen just exists. The real Me is that screen.

The hands and legs and everything physical is the gross body, whereas the mind is the subtle body, but part of the body no doubt. If you cut off the head, all the thoughts stop (well that's what we know). So obviously the mind is connected to the body and does not exist independently. It is like the glass of milk, which seems perfectly plain and white in our naked eyes, but under a microscope it is nothing that small globules of white fat floating in a watery liquid! Amazing, isn't it!

I am neither the body, nor the mind. I am in them, but they are not in me. I am pure Existence. Whatever tangible that I feel, be it bodily pain or mental joy or emotions, they are just affecting this mind-body complex. I am untouched, unattached, unaffected!

I have realised that the only way to live life is to Love. Love everyone, love everything, love every moment. But love them not as objects, but love them just because they are part of You, your existence! Fall in love not with the gifts but fall in love with the gifter of the reality of receiving the gifts! There is no good, there is no bad. There is no friend, there is no enemy. It is only You. You are the giver, and you are the recipient. It is just You everywhere, in everything! There is no God sitting in Heaven driving us, there is no Satan waiting in Hell to punish us. These are just stages of your existence, and it is you who decides how you are going to experience Heaven or Hell now and every future moment!

Coming back to Vivek Panda, I think this me knows this truth somewhere but fails to sustain it in every action. I am still weak, thinking about the Biriyani, thinking about the job, thinking about succeeding in the next karate tournament. But whenever any situation or person tries to bind me too hard, I feel this immense pressure from the voice within to break free! It pounds on my head saying, "There is nothing tangible in this universe that you need to seek. You are already complete, you already have everything that you need. May be Vivek Panda cannot be in the relationship with that beautiful person, but she has already someone (and so it is you in another person enjoying that possibility), or even if she is not with anyone, you can never possess her like an object! We think the urge for enjoyments and sensual pleasures can be gratified by indulging in it. But no matter how many chocolates you have had in your lifetime, does it ever occur to you that the quota of your chocolate in this lifetime is finally over? Indulgence is a habit, it is like a bottomless cup, it just never can have enough!

So, the purpose of my life is Love. And love so much that it breaks the boundaries of this Vivek Panda and everything and everyone around. This is my destination, and whatever I do, whichever way I take, I hope it takes me closer to that ultimate goal.

The Dark Summer

The summer is in full bloom.
Beautiful flowers in all their grandeur
Have exposed themselves
Swaying in the cool breeze
Or just sitting pretty in the lush gardens.

The days are long.
Sunlight remains smeared in the sky
Even past midnight.
'Tis like a careless stroke of bright colour
That the artist spilled in the night sky.
Like a persistent bee
Coming back and buzzing
Right onto your face.

The streets are full of people
Holding hands and smiling
Chattering away in the soothing sunlight
The Summer has come.

But I can a feel a darkness
Creeping into the corners of my heart.
All this bright and happiness
Feels like Fire.
I cannot touch it
But get burnt every time
I step in too close.

The darkness is like my shadow
It follows me everywhere
All the time.
It has transformed me
Into a Vampire
Trying to get a taste
Of the sweet happiness
From the lives of others
But gets burnt inside
Every time it steps into the brightness.

Time has flown by -
The last couple of years.
Still I feel every day is new,
Every day is the last of its kind.
But in my heart,
Time has stood still
For last two decades
Or from eternity.

I have met Lolita.
In many forms,
In many people -
But they have all slipped away,
Never to return.
But in my heart,
Time has stood still
Stuck in the darkness
Looking for my Lolita.

It began with an itch,
Then after years
Perhaps it became numb.
But now,
It is infected.
Spreading the darkness
To the corners of my heart.
Consuming itself,
Spiraling into the core
Of my existence.

May be soon
The darkness will take over.
But the only thing I would say then is:
Lolita, I had waited for you.
Only you.

Sindbad the Sailor: Part 1

It has been one year since Sindbad had set sail. One year since he stepped out of his known world and jumped into the sea of mystery. The special thing about this journey was that there were no other sailors with him. He was alone.

He wasn’t really feeling lonely, or scared. In fact, he was looking forward to it. Because, sometimes having too many people around constrains you & drags you back, like the reign on the collar of a playful puppy. But this time there was nobody to hold him back. He could do whatever whenever he wanted.

Sindbad had to build his ship bit by bit for this journey over a long time. It was a great test of his patience & perseverance. He fought it out with competitors everyday to gather the resources, hammering the nails on the planks of wood in sun, storm & rain. The grease on the ship was made up of his sweat & blood. Not that he knew what awaits him, but he made preparations anyway. His principle was very simple: travel light. The ship wasn’t built of iron, but out of large chunks of wood. Even if the ship would crack & break, it would not sink. Wood doesn’t sink.

The wind was strong, the sails were blown fully and he left the shore with a long toot. He was happy & raring to go, tired of living on the edge of the old city gasping for breath where every day seemed more like the last day. He had a very big smile when the anchor was lifted and the ship went off like an arrow, without ever looking back.

Unlike most other times, where Sindbad looks forward to the journey instead of the destination, this time he couldn’t wait to see the land. He could hardly sleep with his pulses racing, looking out far every other minute, blinking as less as possible, just to catch the first glimpse of the land. While on the ship, he met more and more other ships floating around as the destination drew closer. But he hardly stopped to chat, as he was too busy looking forward.

Finally, he saw the land. It was like a fairytale. Like he had travelled back in time a thousand years. In the land of kings & queens, giants & goblets, angels & ghouls, unicorns & dragons. The air was magical, the people bowed on every word, and the sun was smiling all day & till late at night.

Sindbad set his first foot on the new world.

An encounter with Maya

Today I met her.

She was sitting in a corner of the library, pouring over her open Macbook with several books strewn all around.

I took my seat opposite to her with my usual bunch of books and could not resist noticing the name of a bright green book that was lying around on the table: "Dreams". I was almost sure that it must be the famous book by Freud. I struck up a conversation.

"Maya, what are you reading? Freud? May I take a look into this book  if you dont mind?"
It took me almost 20 minutes to compose & speak the above words. She replied with a gentle & sweet smile.

"No. I'm trying to learn Spanish. This is just a book written in Spanish."
"Maya, why are you always so difficult to predict?"
"Maybe because you think that you can predict everything. There must be somebody to challenge you, right? Dont you like to be challenged? I'm sure that you do."

She knows me very well. I think she knows everything about me. I mean, if you're complete strangers, there is still a non-zero probability that you'll see each other sometime somewhere. But only if somebody knows your every movement, your every pulse & impulse, only then she would be able to elude you. For so long.

I asked again, "The warning alarm of the library has gone off. May I buy you a drink, if you dont mind?"
Again she maintains, "Unfortunately not."

"Maya, why do you think we never meet? Is it that I'm too unacceptable?"
"I dont think so. Maybe because I'm too close to you to see. You see me  in every couple holding hands & sharing a smile. In every random cute girl who passes by. In every careless whisper that catches your ear. In every gentle touch. In every tinkling laughter. You cannot see me everywhere and then again want to find me in a single person. Make up your mind first!"
"Why? What is the problem in that?"
"Problem? Your entire perception makes you blind. Blind with expectations. Blind with desire. Blind with pointless agony. If you see me everywhere, then even if I come to you as a person, you'll reject me."
"That is completely not true. Every time in my life, whenever I found even a fragment of you in any single person, I loved you wholeheartedly."
"Yeah. And there lies the problem. You just love the fragment. Not the entirety. You analyse. You criticise. You tear apart all the goodness & badness and try to deconstruct & reconstruct it in your own way. You are always driven by your mind. Do you even have a heart? I have profound doubt regarding that!"

My lips trembled. Do I have a heart? I would like to say that heart is all that I have, everything else is wrapped by it. But I could not say it. She speaks so confidently that it confuses me every time.

She goes on, "Every single time you find the fragment, you think that you can do better. You're never happy with what you've got. You need it all, all at once, in a single piece. But life is a maze. I always come in fragments. If I came in a single piece, we would be instantly annihilated. Some might say in explosion of energy, positive energy if you like to say. But I say, annihilation is always destruction, deconstruction, irreversible. Either you get lost in your mind or in your heart."

She is right, I think. If she would come  to me I would forget everything, all fear, all other connections, all earthly cares. She would be my Lolita. Mine, and only mine. And finally, this will destroy me. Perhaps she eludes me only to save me from annihilation.

"Maya, do you think this will go on like this forever?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, that will I keep chasing your shadow like this for all my days & never find you?"
"Yes. If you keep chasing my shadow I shall float away forever. But if you ever dare to look me face to face, eye to eye, confront me... then maybe your luck would change. But would you? I think you're too much in love with the faceless, nameless, non-existing shadow. It will be hard for you to move into the sun from it and face the heat. Are you ready?"

I kept silence. What could I say? I gathered composure and muttered for one last time:
"Shall we meet again?"
"Like this, I hope not."
"But what if I never meet you under the sun? Promise me then at least you'll not take away the shadow from me."
"The sun always goes down.", she said with a smile.

And she walked away into the darkness of the night.

Parables of a Survivor in Chennai : Redemption

As I sit in the train on my way to Bristol from Edinburgh, it is only 5.30pm now but the sun has gone down almost 2 hours back. Generally I like to gaze outside from my favourite windows seat and try to absorb as much as possible of the fleeting by sceneries.  But right now hardly anything is visible apart from my own reflection from the glass. So I thought to pick up the piece that was due for more than 2 years. I tried hundreds of times but fell short of words every time. Let us see how it goes this time.

Time has flown by since I left Chennai. But the memories are as fresh like yesterday. This piece is dedicated to all my friends in Chennai and especially to my room-mates without whom it would be never as enjoyable as it has been.

When we stepped in Chennai for the first time from Mysore on 7^th September 2009, we were all apprehensive of the place. I still remember the grim faces and painful squeals of people when the posting locations were declared in Mysore at Infosys GEC2. But in the 2 years that we spent there, we learnt to love the place & the life there… mostly, the Freedom.

Most of us grew up thinking about getting decent grades in the education system, secure a job with high possibilities and a respectable income. As we move on one step after another, the last step seems less and less relevant as we strain to reach the next milestone. But sometimes it occurs to me, all of these are important, but may not lead to a so-called Happy Life. Happy Life is a very complicated function of health, money, relationships, career and attitude. But mostly attitude.

Attitude triggers & controls everything else. This is one of the foremost realizations that I had so far. When we were in Chennai, all of us were very alert and felt alive. It was not just about going to office and performing good everyday, but you had to think about the other aspects of your daily life that we had never thought of before. From the daily chores, arranging food, turning off the water pump in time, washing clothes, cleaning the house, it taught us everything step by step. We made mistakes everyday and learnt to overcome them. It was as thrilling as learning to walk for the first time! We learnt to appreciate the subtle efforts needed in everything around us that used to go unnoticed when we were at home, leading a selfish life and thinking about only us all the time. The experience in Chennai taught us to adapt & to evolve. We finally got a taste of life, slapped by it, spanked by it and also kissed by it. As I returned from Chennai to Kolkata after about 31 months after I left home, I felt myself to be a stronger, better & more independent individual.

My room-mates were a very important part of my life there. All our lives revolved around each other everyday. We were support systems for each other and stood up for ourselves against all adversities like a single family. The happiness expanded manifold on distribution and tough times got cushioned. Without them, I admit, it would have been very difficult to live there all alone. In fact, I truly believe that all these years were actually a part of my extended college experience. We were trained almost from scratch, started working under the guidance of able team lead and finally learnt to deliver independently.

In Chennai, my typical day would start from 7.30am when I would get up, reach office within 8.45 and work till 12pm and take a long lunch break when all of the roomies will meet together for a daily dose of gossips and food; then resume work till 5.30pm, go to salsa class (my first formal dance lessons!), go to gym (sometimes), jump in the swimming pool and do some quick laps, play snooker for couple of hours, have dinner at the food court and return home by the last bus! Whoa! I did everything that Infosys offered. I had a tendency to jump in the waters of every beach that I went to. From getting the stick of the police at Marina Beach, to Thiruvanmiyur, Besant Nagar, Kovalam, Elliots, Mahabalipuram, Pondicherry, I swam in every beach no matter what season it was, how the weather was or what I was wearing at that time! My most favourite memory in Chennai was of the day when we had lunch at our friends’ place at SP Koil, where we decided to spend the evening to Mahabalipuram (45mins far by bus), and reaching there we decided to spend the night at Pondicherry (2 hours from there). We reached Pondicherry at 2 in the morning and just roamed about in the dark till morning due to unavailability of vacancies in hotels! In the end we felt tired, but happy! With our friends, there was hardly a day without any happenings. As I type this now, I feel a major part of me totally numb just because of their absence here.

Fixing a destination gives you a direction but also takes away the flexibility to stop and relish the present. When we keep on dreaming about the future, the present slips away without notice. When I moved away from Chennai, I started to miss the people who I hardly talked with! The people who I played snooker with everyday, we exchanged hardly anything more than a quick appreciation or a tap on the table, but that is what remains etched in my memory. The pretty girl who used to come to have breakfast at the same time I went and used to sit at the same seat everyday. The rowdy group of boys who used to splash around in the swimming pool for hours, without even completing a single lap. The stout little man who used to lift 80 kilograms in the gym, without even weighing the same himself! All these insignificant memories keep swirling into my subconscious time to time.

People from other parts of India generally have a not-so-correct perception about the life and people in Chennai. Yes, people do not speak much Hindi. But tell me, which English person would speak French with you? People in Tamil Nadu are very protective about their own culture. I do not see any harm in that. Even if you drop by to Madurai or Coimbatore, you would get a flavour of the life and language that is hundreds of years old. Mixing of culture makes the people open but spoils the distinct flavour. In Kolkata, we accept all people as our own. We try to adopt habits that come floating by from any direction. But if you go around Kolkata, how many things in daily life can you find out that is very uniquely Bengali? We are the most adaptive, like a cockroach. We will live long and spread everywhere in the world. But we are gradually losing the ability to retain the uniquely Bengali culture within ourselves.

Tamil Nadu’s strategy is admittedly a bit extremist. They intentionally create a distance between themselves and the non-Tamil people. But that is what made them one of the richest cultural places. From the taste of dosai & sambar, the Tamil language, the gajra on the ladies’ hair, the smell of strong alcohol in every other guy’s breath, the periodic whistle of the train passing by, the hot insufferable summer, the dark countryside of Paranur lit by silvery moonlight, the soothing sound of waves crashing on the Besant Nagar beach, swimming in the rain… all were a part of my day-to-day life and are a savoured memory now.

I have learnt to love Chennai as a whole, as a part of me. As I sign-off the Parable today, all I have is a big smile on my face. Thank you everybody for making the journey so beautiful.