Spring brings many gifts! Courage to change, is but one

February has always been a bitter-sweet kind-of-month for me. My 'Monalisa moments' -- I love to call them. The best taste for the soul does arrive in Spring! February also happens to be my birthday month, and no matter where I am in the World -- I know when they come. Fortunately, in the end, you stay rooted, usually grateful, and remain humble when welcoming change.

A little throwback to offer for not publishing my thoughts on building Castles in the Sky: I've been spending time at the hospital, not as a patient -- thankfully, but as an "attender" (they call me this) -- taking care of my mum, and now at home -- as she recoups from total knee-replacement surgery. Weak in the knees -- all the family suffer from it, especially the women! Not sure if I must make an attempt to decorate the family-men folk here? I suppose it is safe to say: genetics should be crowned instead.

Be prepared to simply forget sleep when there's a loved one on a hospital bed. Most of it you lose worrying, and a quarter goes out the window with nurses, and ayyas and doctors checking-up on the patient. No blame to them, please! We won't be up and about if they don't sacrifice their sleep to rejuvenate us. But the point of this blogpost is not about hospitals or patients or attenders; it is about what wonderful Spring does to you!

Seasons really haven't been a thing for Chennai, but if you've travelled enough you come to appreciate the distinct nature of each weather-season and the moods they bring with them. When harsh winters melt away, sweet-smelling freshness greets you and I bet it takes a particular strength for delicate beauty to push through. Well, the hot, hotter and hottest style of weather in Chennai offers little variation, but one can still appreciate the subtle transformations.

It is that time in the year when cool winds begin to feel like warm breeze; when Chennai's green gets a rather dry, yellowish tint, and yes -- when bougainvilleas begin to burst out into a riot of colours all around you. The changes leave you second-guessing -- 'Are we headed for Summer already'! Spring might be a short-stay guest in Chennai, but she does bring delights when passing through. Isn't it always the softer, fleeting moments that give us pluck and spine to deal with big loads of crap? I think so.

There's this one birthday Spring I spent in the UK, and the image of a single deep-yellow daffodil swaying in the gentle breeze I cannot forget. Something about the colour and the movement of the delicate flower has remained with me. Imagine the effect on William Wordsworth when he saw 'a host of golden daffodils'.



I have come to realise that restlessness always wiggles its way to the surface to make sure you know that something MUST change. It usually takes me a while to figure out what / when / how, etc. Yet somehow, the Universe knows what to take from you and how much to replace. You just need to muster-up enough courage to checkout the unknown -- that's the terrifying bit. With hope for the better, just a plunge is all it takes, honestly. And then, you always have an image of something nice from Spring to keep your sanity intact, like I do with the solitary daffodil!

Mostly just remember: February's Spring air seems to have something in it that brings back your courage to change, gently.

My tryst with writing. Credit: carnatic music

A reader very kindly pointed out that I didn't do justice to the Ghatam in my Pot belly and gun throat blog post. I joked it off as 'collateral damage' but it got me thinking. The truth is: carnatic music is how I came to discover the writer in me.

It was frustration that drove me into the warm arms of sa re ga ma pa dha ni sa. The dear Mylapore Maami was a kind soul and took me on as a student pronto. She had the widest smile and was frankly amused that I didn't know how to read and write Tamil despite being born in the cradle of Tamil culture - Madurai. At 30, I could manage to speak the language, but couldn't string a decent sentence without grammatical and gender errors. Mrs Maami would dictate the classic hymns because I couldn't write Tamil either. Phonetics helped me write what she would call out. She simply smiled every time I goofed up with the lyrics - delighted at my interest.

Sitting with little kids, even younger than my children were at that time, I learned many valuable lessons that have shaped my attitude. The experience humbled me - there is never a wrong age to learn, and one can learn from anyone, especially children.

Mrs Maami would show me off, telling them: "See this Anglo-Indian is interested in our music!" I would get those looks from the 'people' - I hated being on exhibition. But I suppose fair skin and brown hair is a let down, and rather impossible to come off as typical 'south Indian'. Sometimes, Mrs Maami would ask me to sing a Keerthanai for the visitors - oh, she was so proud she could train me to sing carnataka sangeetham! 

I worked with a daily national newspaper at that time; I was in advertising, but Mrs Maami said: "Everybody in the newspaper company can write! You write this article about Shri Thiruchy - he is a famous musician; it is a blessing." Shri Thiruchy could not speak English and I, Tamil - we were ill-matched from the start. If not for my friend from 1994, I could never have managed the very first interview that got me a byline in two editions of the popular English daily. She was my interpreter, my stenographer, my translator, and my Tamil-to-English-to-Tamil dictionary! A good friend, she remains till date.

Took me days to get the copy in a narrative-style-like shape. It was 2004 - did not own a computer at that time, and had only worked with pre-designed templates on terminals. I sat behind my office table (counter number 1) with one-sided paper, a pencil and an eraser, and pieced together the bits of information I thought were interesting. Must have made a least twenty hand-written copies before I decided the article was presentable. Still wanted expert opinion, so a close friend introduced me to one of the editors of the newspaper I worked with - a serious-looking man, but one I respected very much, still do. I gave him my hand-written copy and he thrashed it to bits.

Never had I seen so many red-inked corrections on handwritten work - my school exam papers did not match-up. Not good enough for publication of course- that was clear. But what I appreciate most and am grateful for to this day, was that the editor sat me down and explained why he did what he did with my copy. I went back and reworked on it; submitted a type-written copy - that was the first time I used Microsoft Word at an internet cafe - to the Bureau Chief. He liked it. The article was published in two editions: Chennai and Trichy, without a single change.

I went back to learning to sing carnatic music. Mrs Mylapore Maami began to show off the article, not me. So grateful I was.       







   

Nothing is as it seems. Period.

"Or, so you believe in conspiracy theories, do you!?" a renowned professor of science asked me one frosty winter morning in Brighton. He wore an amused look borderlined with cynicism on his face, and even though most facial features were covered-up with long white beard hairs, I could still make out a hint of a smile that gradually reflected in his eyes. One releases a little piece of themselves in the most obvious places, always - but believe that it is the obscure that frees them.

It is, for me, these conversations you have with people while seated in simple settings or along the fringes of some high-profiled conference that remain tucked away in the brain some place, rather than profound statements from lectures or presentations you are privilege to in glamour-lit banquet halls almost always organised in precious locations. 

Words have a way of sticking to you - with them, the emotion. I bet your memory can dig out - if you will allow it - words and sometimes even sentences from as far as kindergarten! The subconscious is probably the most feared thing for this very reason, isn't it. Pretty sure science has an evidence-based theory for all this - I really don't care though, because there are some things that cannot be reached by science. They are felt. Science can't feel, or sense - it can detect of course.

My pure Camomile afternoon tea is turning cold under the gentle fan breeze, but I just had to write this blog post first. The rush to pen down thoughts are so strong, you can't stop for anything or anybody, leave alone 100% natural pure Camomile! I dig into my inbox to pull out the words that give me hope to begin this year - they are my inspiration - the reminder of my life's contribution to the world (so I believe).

'Again and again in history

Some special people wake up

They have no ground in the crowd

They move to broader laws

They carry strange customs with them

And demand room for bold and

Audacious actions

The future speaks ruthlessly through them

They change the world' - Maria Rilke Ranier

But, nothing is as it seems now, is it.

"It's like writing your own obituary. I suppose, to look back at it and say, you know, I cared enough to go to these places and write in some way something that would make someone else care as much about it as I did at the time, part of it is you're never going to get to where you're going if you acknowledge fear. I think fear comes later when you've - when it's all over." - the words I closed 2018 with - I heard them, watched the woman speak them and they struck a chord, deep - a place I didn't bother acknowledging, until now. 

The celebrated war correspondent, Marie Colvin - resonated with how Rainer describes special people. Nothing is never as it seems, and special people know this too well. 

Pot belly and gun throat

It started sometime end of November, and I've run out of patience. I left my work desk, told a colleague that I'm going to give the guy a piece of my mind, and did just that with undertones of diplomacy on the very second day of the New Year. I returned, relieved. This is how 2019 is going to be for me perhaps... I'll be pleased with myself when I can pull it off for the 51 weeks to follow.

A particular middle-aged man had been monopolising the road just outside my office window, bellowing his guts out. He is supposedly talking over a smart phone, and I'm guessing to someone who is definitely stone deaf. Every morning around 10.30ish, he will park his scooter on side-stand, lean on the little thing, his back towards my window, pull out his bigger-than-palm rose gold phone to begin a day of yell-talking. The New Year came, no electric blue lady's scooter, instead a white car arrives. This time he shows off his pot belly (he was dressed in full white as well!) to start a conversation so loud, I couldn't hear myself think. 

Let's call him Mr O - comes close to his body shape, at least a perfect fit for his pot belly. He's barely above five feet, but seems to carry his figure with what I'm going to call the 'push-factor' - it's when the backside pushes the front of you - get me? You would have noticed that every person carries themselves differently, of course - otherwise too, it is not very difficult to appreciate this posture. Imagine the pelvis driving the rest of the body parts and you've conjured-up an image of Mr O. Now back to his gun throat - the focus of my ear-drum cum brain waves for over a month.

Initially, I marvelled at his ability to keep such a monotonous tempo - sometimes for 60 minutes straight. Was even entertained by the sentences that the wind carried to the ear, especially remotely coloured words. All Tamil he spoke (may be a good thing I don't know all special words in the language) and I could make out these were personal conversations, nothing business-like about them.

Wait, would it be coming from the power of the pot-shapeliness? Could be, you see! Because, I've been to a few carnatic music concerts during the Chennai Margazhi festival season and the Ghatam sound did reach balcony ears albeit microphone - being a simple, ancient percussion instrument, you can't escape its instinctive metallic pitch. This is exactly how Mr O sounds! Except that there wasn't palm-slapping and fingers hard-tapping against smooth firmness (assuming here - haven't honestly felt-up a pot belly).

If you think this blogpost is funny already, let me tell you - Mr O, his pot-belly and gun throat never left my window in spite of diplomacy-coated piece-of-mind-receiving on January 2nd.

I suppose the improvised lesson for 2019 now is: Speak your mind, and not care two hoots how the other reacts, whether in your favour or not. Pour yourself some hot tea, kick-off your sandals and get the heck back to work!








  

Does curiosity really kill the cat?!

Lucky goes crazy at the crack of dawn. She's the calico kitten my husband rescued from scavenging crows little more than a month ago. It was curiosity that came to her rescue, is it not? If he didn't suffer inquisitiveness, and not investigate the racket of cawing coming from an abandoned house two plots away, Lucky would have been very 'unlucky' - pecked to shreds indeed!

She's the boss at home these days, I'm only allowed to serve, and fuss with her when she craves it. Probably deserving of this worship she is - fending off hungry beaks is not easy for a three-week old baby. Call it instinct if you will, but Lucky has earned the black 'n' brown fur stripes. Lessons from her escapade she holds in wise eyes - I watch her challenge the crows these days with new-found confidence. Got me thinking - this kitten. Is it curiosity-led confidence she's found, or does confidence in fact feed inquisitive inventiveness?

I have found over the years - new confidence that is - around every blind corner I've turned. A tad bit wiser every time from throwing yourself into an abyss of the unknown - new awareness comes from where I don't honestly know - but several leaps of faith have grown me like a germinating seed eager to sprout forth green. Had I not trusted my gut even if it meant biting off a little more than I can possibly chew, the reward could never have been mine to savour. Could never see it but, still can't sometimes - the reward waits though, and it is mine. The problem with this blind-corner-reward-habit is the inability to say 'no' to virtually anything that crosses your path. Everything becomes opportunity.

"Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed" - Ayn Rand makes clear. If it was not for our ability to reason and contemplate, our curious instinct - sixth sense - might have the animal-like sharpness. Preparedness and caution would be less planned, and we will give in to our adventurous spirit, I believe. Of course, Ms Rand writes in a different context, and I'm pulling out a singular line to dwell on here. She also says: "The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me." 

Window discoveries and chance meetings

Sequel to The wind in my face

Windows have always played a very important role in my life. They open-up when I least expect - all not wide, but open nonetheless. Lucky to spot these windows! When I can't find one, I search until I do. I'm also window-crazy - literally. Can't give it up even for a child I'm afraid - an innocent obsession ever since I first began daily commuting as a five-year-old. I even insist that my travel agent book me a window seat on flights - doesn't matter there is no wind in my face. It was a chance introduction from a train window that brought turbulence under control one evening.

After you've turned the 'naughty 40' corner, maturity trickles in perhaps, and rationality takes over impulsiveness I suppose. Oh, the spur-of-the-moment things I did in my younger days! I miss them - urges creep in sometimes, borderlined with minimal recklessness they fail to sweeten as much. One evening, a serious itch to deviate from my routine home-office-home journey took over. Giving in to temptation, I took the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) in the opposite direction from home. I know I said one is mature with age and all, but you can't grow-up too much, really.The child in you will always remain - buried perhaps, and every once in a while show-up to have some pure fun - maybe even to help you deal with the pressures of life.

It was a second Saturday - an office holiday, I was working but. Colleagues know I despise working over weekends - I am very vocal about it. Something needed to leave my desk for the press to pick-up in time and I had loads to read before I wrote it. Anyway, I delivered, but was annoyed - had been this way for a few days having been dragged into something I didn't bargain for. The noisy and filthy MRTS compartments didn't bother me, besides tickets are dirt cheap and there's definitely something extra-exciting about travelling at a height of 14 meters (45.93 feet) from the ground! My plan was to travel till the end of the line, and take a return ticket back to the other end of the journey. I just needed to be by myself, even if it was for only over an hour.

For those not from Chennai, the MRTS is India's first elevated railway line that connects the north and south of Chennai while cutting across parts of the city. Concrete pillars cradle the railway tracks and a portion of the line runs along the length of Cooum River, also called Adyar River - I remember it as Buckingham Canal though. The Canal was a major waterway once-upon-a-time; now the poor thing carriers the city's waste water to the Bay of Bengal. The railway line also crosses Perungudi lake - a paradise for bird watchers, especially when migratory birds turn up during the cooler months (December-February). Yes, the Marina Beach is visible at a distance and one can definitely smell the fishy-salty air - cannot quite decide if the nostril-filing combo came entirely from the Ocean or the famous wholesale fish market - as the electric train screeches out of Triplicane station. There's something about the smells your nose picks-up when you enter a place viz-a-viz when you exit I think - there must be a whole study on this (should look it up some day).

@14 meters above the ground, sights and smells don't linger you will find - everything is but a fleeting moment. The mind is so intelligent - it absorbs even the slightest. The wind rushes at you - it's fresh and clean, then still air or maybe the occasional light breeze when you enter a station every five or seven minutes roughly. Your nose won't even catch a sniff from the otherwise stenchy Cooum River and yet, you can't wait for the open air to greet your senses - the familiar double horn goes, heightened anticipation re-visits, hopeful once again - you gaze forward into absolute black. You've most probably missed the green flag ritual between station master and train guard - you don't care, really. With darkness fallen, you just want to stare into nothingness and be by yourself. People around you have ceased to exist - you did notice them when you began your journey but: 'how could one be so absorbed in oneself!' Outside noise shut-off, thoughts are causing a frown as retinas adjust to the blackness, you breathe deep and are just about ready to let 'stuff' flow out when the average-lit railway station springs-up on you too quickly. Jolted back to reality by this lights-on, lights-off 19.34 kilometer train journey, you suddenly become aware of noise and notice people - a frail old lady caught my attention.

She wore a saree, but there wasn't enough flesh on her bones for the thin material to drape gracefully. 'Could it be why she bound the six-and-a-half yards around her so tight, covering her head, and tucking the ends into her narrow waistline'? Or she could be feeling the wind too harsh, reaching her bones - I would never know for sure; I didn't ask. Her face was hardly visible below her sunken eyes and the bridge of her nose - a thin, dark palm covering the remaining part of her nose with a loose saree-end. "Could you help her please," a young voice came from outside the train window. The train had stopped for a bit at Beach station. The voice struggled to get words out - she was stammering. I volunteered - "The train is going towards Velacherry, yes - get in." The girl explained that the old lady had missed alighting at the station and needed to travel back to her destination. I agreed to help and the old lady seated herself next to me as train pulled out of Beach station - my quiet companion for the next 15 minutes.

"Where do you want to go?"
"To the beach," she responded quickly.
"Yes, but the train stops at several places along Marina Beach," If I knew the exact place she was headed, I would guide her to the nearest station.
"I want to go to the beach; I won't go into the water," she added quickly, reading the cautionary glint in my eyes."Just want to feel the sea breeze; I want to sit on the grass and spend some time alone - at least an hour, then I'll take a bus home." It was almost 8 pm in the evening already. She was staying in the interior southern suburb of Chennai, I found out, and it will take her about one-and-half-hours to get home by bus. With public transport being unreliable and all, she wouldn't make it before 10 pm, I was sure of that. She was in no hurry to go home.

"I have travelled to the Beach by bus before, this is first time I took the train," she talks to me. She had been waiting for almost an hour at the bus stop. "My mind was so pre-occupied that I didn't realise I missed my train stop," her smile rueful.

The frail elderly woman leaves the safe confines of her home, and patiently waited for a public bus to take her to Marina Beach some 35 kms away. Then choosing to board the MRTS, misses her alighting point, and is now taking the train back to her destination. She's been travelling for at least three hours - how desperate she must be. All she wanted was to empty her mind, and feel the beach breeze blow her worries away. Could I be more desperate than her?

The wind in my face...

It's nice to have a daily routine I suppose. You learn to have structure, and know when you're coming and going, and what you will do in between. But routines, in my opinion, kill off your freedom and in the process, all which is possible with that freeness. Just to be able 'to be' is directly proportionate to our ability to be free, I'm convinced.   

It makes me crazy to have follow a pre-determined schedule, but I do do it because life demands we set ourselves a pattern. Stability is the key word here - don't most of us crave a stable environment - be it at work or home. And why do we think we need this 'stability' - because it carries with it a sense of security. We don't seem to want to risk our safety lest we loose what we've taken years if not decades to pull together. Every thought, every plan, every action, every relationship - I can add more 'everys' but I'm sure you get the picture - is enveloped (in my mind 'stigmatised') with having to feel safe and secure. Gosh! Even advertising and branding is all about 'safety nets' in different forms and shapes - but can't be blamed since after all we the people create them in the first place. From what are we protecting ourselves - is another blogging topic in itself.

Such pre-designed lives - most seem comfortable with this structure; I'm bursting but. Honestly, if given a choice, I would take-off in any direction the wind blows to find my way in life. Gladly chase nothing in particular but myself - my mind is so much ahead of me, I don't have time to play catch-up! Envy the soul that's able to do this. Alas, responsibilities have always anchored me and I am where I am, doing what I do best - communicating.

Running away from reality, that's what she is doing - many term my impulsive urges to set myself free. Does this mean I don't love my family and friends - NO!! It is about connecting with oneself, about seeking clarity within the dark and deep insides of your being; it is about self-realisation - and all this is possible only when you can truly shut-off the noise from outside and inside you. Meanwhile, you can only take small deviations - a short-lived escape to empty oneself - I took a train journey one evening and fresh perspective breathed into me. 

What discoveries - I detail in my next blog. Stay connected!