The Time Capsule

Anjali had been busy with her new job and her social life had picked up as well, she had always been an outgoing person and now with friends she seemed to have positively blossomed.  I had got up early this morning and was deep in thought, "as I am so often in the morning," there were many things I had wanted for Anjali and amongst them the foremost was her happiness.  Attachments beget sorrow and could my attachment to her be bringing strife to her otherwise happy life, when human beings attach themselves to each other there is often the chance of this attachment turning to something more and in my case I was too independent to allow that.  So this morning my thoughts went to happiness and how it could be attained.

So I went and saw a movie, it was called "Django Unchained" that talked of the deep declined virtues in Southern USA more specifically Texas, the negros were enslaved and tortured, maltreatment being an understatement.  I enjoyed the movie, though thought it was too violent and by the end of it couldn't wait to get out of the theater, there is a limit to the kind of bloodshed that one can watch that shows blood spurting out of severed heads and limbs.  The divide between the rich and the poor has always lead to bloodshed especially the one based on color and creed.  I came back from the movie thinking of Django as the noble creature who dispensed with anybody trying to stop him from attaining his freedom and that was a salient thought.

The color of money seems to be the hue of the season, there are people trying to make a good buck from just about anything, depression seems to have been around far too long now, you know it when people stop talking about love.  I for one have always liked a love story, give me one and I will take it and nurture it into a full fledged fire, "that sounds really quaint, doesn't it," but then I am kind of ancient in my thought process, the classical prose is what I love to write, "antiquity is probably the right word," and I have often wondered about the human thought process as a whole and the influence of it on actions.  The classical thought process often predates the romantic thought process, though the objective of both is the same, to remove boredom and tediousness of life.

For instance the classical form would evaluate what form of friendship could transpire between a man and a woman without turning into something more, and of course, also evaluate the reasons why it didn't turn into anything more if it so happened that way.  A woman needs a man who cares for her emotionally and though I fulfilled that requirement with Anjali, I didn't really take well to the romantic angle.  Now I was sure that Anjali had no romantic inclinations towards me either, but that set my mind into figuring out why was there no romantic angle between us.  There is some merit in the saying, "blessed are those whose mind are never at rest," and my mind was trying to decipher this thought and dissect it to pieces, "it was frightening," for in dissecting it I was playing the assassin and the game was going to be fraught with danger where I could end up hurting myself.

Spend Your Energy On Things That Make You Happy.

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The Long Walk

It was a bright sunny day again, the last two days had heralded the winter to the city and I welcomed it with full gaiety, "I wanna take my Summer life away," I had enjoyed this summer thoroughly though and was looking forward to the winter too, "damn, twelve months was too short a time for the year," Anjali had stayed with me through thick and thin this Summer and that made me happy.  She was busy brewing up some coffee when I walked into her immaculately clean kitchen, "the spoons in place and the plates in the cradle," two cups were lying neatly, with sugar already in them and the coffee machine was making all the right noises.  I had a plan for this Saturday and was eager to know her opinion about it, she sniffled her way to sink, and said, "tell me."

See, this Summer we had been to long walks and drives and to end the Summer I planned for a two day long hiking trip, there was already some mist in the morning and dew drops delicately poised virtually everywhere by Mother Nature, "damn the mornings would get cold without the Sun," and before that happened a long weekend was probably the ideal thing.  Anjali was somebody who never got sold on an idea unless she had logically evaluated it, and this time around she approved within five minutes, she said she also wanted to stretch her legs, "her mind her as well," and that was a phenomenal thought.  She believed that we went through our lives like a routine, doing things by default, "damn, I could believe that," a routine helped us tide over the daily dose of thoughts, "and this was mindless," we believed that there was sanity in routine as this would help us cut down on our thoughts and help us focus our minds on what we needed to. On the contrary sometimes the routine needed to be re-evaluated to help us focus more intensely.

Romeo was as usual buzzing around the house, Anjali asked me to quickly finish breakfast and get my car ready for the trip, she served me Honey Pancakes with butter, "man, I loved her pancakes," they were served crisp and brown, the honey splattered in a design on top of them.  She had once told me that she had got this recipe from her grandmother, she would bake the pancakes in the microwave after having prepared the batter, and what normally would take people 1/2 hour to do, she would finish in flat fifteen minutes, the secret to them being this perfectly brown lay in the temperature of the microwave, it had to be just perfect and the timing even more perfect.  I had my own recipes for everything but gave more credence to her recipes than mine, she was good at everything, from cooking to trekking to her work, "perfection personified."
Goodness exists because there is Evil.

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The Circle Of Karma

The Winds of Change were slowly blowing across my personal landscape, it had happened and happened again, the last when such a change had happened, it had been years ago and the change had radically transformed my life.  I was a sucker for a change, "damn how I welcomed it," and lived for it, it wasn't as if I didn't realise the advantages of stability, however once things were stable enough, I once again began harping for something to change.  It gave me my sustenance for life, like there was a civil war constantly brewing up inside me, "thoughts of gun blazing inside my head," gave me this high of knowing that I could stand up and be counted when the time was right.

Last I had been to London was some three years ago, when the warm summer sun allowed people to shed their clothes finally and take stock of their lives in dull suffused glow of it.  There were times when I had thought that my going to London had been fortuitous, after all what is life unless you get the Big Picture and more often than not, moving away from the scene of action for a short span of time allowed for radical mental changes.  Anjali had never questioned me about my trips there, though she was curious, she would quieten, but I knew her and saw that I would have to satiated the part of her that wanted to know more about me.

As I walked into an M.F. Hussain contemporary painting exhibition, "though there never had been anything contemporary about him while he had been alive," he was an artist par excellence and an old rebel, I met this old friend of mine there, Shilpa, who was visiting the exhibition too, I had known her for well over 10 years and this was the first time I had seen her in a while, "damn how I hate perfection in numbers," so the "while" here had more to do with a time frame than anything else.  She was travelling with another friend of hers, Meenakshi, and they both were commenting on a controversial painting of Hussain, which depicted the map of India as the body of a woman.  Meenakshi was really quiet and spoke and then stopped and allowed Shilpa to dominate the appraisal of the art piece.  When I walked into the conversation and said my hellos to them, "and how I hated these intros," Shilpa was in full flow, I listened to her too, "as I often do these days with most," and realised that Shilpa's friend wanted to talk but was holding back.

These days there are too many people talking about a lot of things that make no sense to anyone, its the quiet introvert like her friend, Meenakshi, who understood people more than anything.  Meenakshi began to apply the same technique to me, she would seemingly want to talk to me and then stopped midway and allowed me to continue to tell her more about the painting, "a pigeon in the making eh ?".  I began to wonder at people like her who never spoke out and yet were instrumental in leading many conversations.  How did Meenakshi do this, I wanted to find out, but there were more paintings to peruse today and miles to go before I slept.
If You Expect The Lion To Not Eat You, Because You Didn't Eat It Then Stop Fooling Yourself.

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The First Breeze Of An Indian Winter

The Sun shone brightly and the umbrella on my balcony was fairly blooming in the wind, it was a potent combination, Sun and Wind, Winters were round the corner, "and damn I was waiting for the Indian Winter," when the dew drops would glisten the grass and the mist would turn a corner every single morning, not too cold and not too warm, "that's how a westerner would describe it," and I'd take their description with me every single morning to work.  After all what was a cool 15 deg C but the ideal Indian winter, life was OK now, it was beginning to turn a corner too, it had been a cold and harsh winter last year, "and it wasn't because the Sun didn't shine," I just wanted to make up this year.

Anjali was dressed in her best today, she was going to meet this old friend of hers, "not a friend, another acquaintance," were her own words, she didn't know this guy too well, but had known he existed for over a decade, an old face from college I figured and let it pass.  But it wasn't giving me a great feel, normally I would love it for her to be with her friends, "a happy disposition is always easy to pass around," it got her in the correct state of mind to converse.  I had lived this city for years now, seen the seamier side of it, hookers trying to entice men, the dope and the rave parties, jealous jilted lovers looking for an opportunity for revenge and even stalkers trying to pass by as innocent bystanders.

And I didn't get a great feeling today, I had to admit, I got this strange queasy feeling in my stomach, like something was wrong.  The day after Anjali received this first few messages from him and it was after five long years, I started seeing strange signs around me, I saw a young lady in a car listening to music in her Mini, and saw her being followed, "stalked my mind snapped at me now," by an obnoxious guy in a large car.  This guy would trace her path around the road not stopping or slowing down but slow enough to always stay behind her, my bet was he wanted to find out where she resided.  I stayed with the game for a while and then gave up, hoping and wishing her the best.  In a country where stalking was considered a minor crime it would obviously be difficult to establish criminal intent.

Then the same evening when I stopped to buy cigarettes from the local shop I saw a similar episode, a young girl returning from office, walked past me while I smoked in the car and she was being followed by this young man dressed nicely Jeans and Tees.  I wasn't sure how to react, not to what I was seeing on the road, but how to explain to Anjali that this guy wasn't right, now, I wasn't much of a believer in God, but that small part in me that believed told me straight away, "this is your sign from HIM."

It had all started with Anjali receiving up to fifty messages a day from this guy, all flowery and well worded, she wasn't sure how to react but had told me that she would go ahead and meet him and explain to him that she was flattered by the attention but really not up to what he wanted.  Actually, she insisted that she wanted to find out what he wanted from her, and this was her way of cooling him off, meeting him and talking to him normally would obviously dispel the thoughts that played a game of shadow on his mind.  It was easy for me to accept her logic as I believed in what she was telling me too, however these signs wouldn't go away.
To Intuit is Divine, Give Me A Sign.

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To Hell And Quietly Back

Pradhan was to be at the designated place, "and damn he was meticulous," Anjali had called him while in the car and asked if he had the "stuff," and he had acquiesced, Pradhan was an old friend of Anjali's and a guy she liked a lot, "didn't know how much I was going to like him though," my attention span was low these days with strangers.  So we reached the spot right on time and began to wonder what was in store, " I didn't like surprises too much," and neither did she.  We waited for a while and before I could feel like a bank robber the guy arrived, short and fit, he was attired in Jeans and a Tee, he was on the phone and walked quick and talked in English, "real quick too," I remember seeing his face for the first time and he was cherubic.

Anjali had this real talent for finding good friends even at the worst of places, she always had somebody who she could rely on at any place, "and that made me glad," Pradhan was different from Anand who was the party animal personified,  Pradhan on the other hand was dignified and noble, he could talk for hours even in his doped state of mind.  He regaled us with stories of his family and I was suddenly happy talking to him, "and Anjali even happier," I decided to listen more than talk as if there is a lot of merit in being QUIET when somebody is in full flow.  I think human beings are gregarious talkers, "even the most introvert people," and society pays the extrovert for talking, you only have to look at the corporate cultures to realise that people try and cover up their shyness and quietness by talking endlessly, its almost like they are not at ease with their own self.

Pradhan's father was in the army and that is where I suppose he got his fortitude from, "I suppose you could call it quiet fortitude," if ever there was a thing like that, funnily enough that was the phrase that Anjali used to describe Pradhan, I was sure I would eventually understand, "damn I never failed to understand her point of view,"  you beauty, you always had a point of view that had me marvelling at your thought process.  Pradhan had had a tough life, he was an introvert turned an extrovert to please the baying crowd, he was happy with his own people but felt he had a social obligation to keep other peoples perception of him alive by talking to them in a genial manner that would become even Dr Watson.  We spoke to him for an hour and when we left I carried this blissful imprint of him in my mind.
Stay Ignorant, Stay Happy.

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As Days Go By

I had been dropping Anjali to the office for a week now, since we had been missing our walks together,"and damn I so hated that," I thought I would make up by driving her to work, the morning conversation was important, it so set the tone for the day.  She would talk about her work and office life with loads of enthusiasm, "and that is so an understatement," for somebody who was this hardworking and dedicated it was pleasure to hear her talk about it, work kept her busy and her life schedule looked all set, "sometimes work is the best medicine," through thick and thin with her, now I knew what was troubling her, "I could probably have mind reading as my alternative employment," and given the fact there was evidence enough that my skills were improving at it.

Her boss was a total bitch, "another understatement," my advice to people who generally told me this was "give up the job or live with the boss," but in this case I found a nuance that was kind of special, Anjali loved her job but not the boss, was it fair under those circumstances to ask her to give up the job.  The answer was written on her face, she would continue with this new job for years, in all probability her boss would resign earlier than her, I was sure Anjali would get promoted and replace her boss.  Life had taught me a lesson again here, when faced with a question that we think we know an answer to, it finds a new meaning when we attach it to someone who is important to us.  Anjali was very important, "and damn that by all means was another understatement," I was making a habit of this now, I knew now how crucial it was for her to stick to this job and not give up just because there was a "Big Rock," in the way.

Speaking of Big Rocks, I just wrote down my MIT's, "Most Important Tasks," for the days to come and found that I was so engrossed with my life that I didn't have an MIT that made sense to me.  Anjali had suggested this MIT "philosophy," to me, "Massachusetts, no puns intended," and I was getting around to building my day around this.  Nowadays I had tasks at hand till about 2pm in the afternoon and then it was a herculean finding creative things to do after that, "like fish in an aquarium," I needed to feel the breeze of the sea to get my mind going, I would end up calling Anjali, "and she was at work," a million times till she returned home to keep my mind going in the right direction.  Of all the things that made sense to me nowadays, my association with her and her friends was the way forward, "forget the past," my mind would snap back at me, and I would ask it to calm down and let me think, there was a sort of dichotomy here, my mind after all wasn't removed from my physical being and yet it seemed to me that it,"went wandering a bit," like I had this ability to lend it to people in my network who required it at that point in time.

We are very selfish beings and tend to think a whole lot about ourselves and what we do, Anjali had often told me to remember that we are in all probability an insignificant part in the global pool of intelligence, which is far more purposeful and overreaching than anything we would ever know in our lives.  The important thing was to consider each thing we wanted to do in its entirety and then attack the problem, "not everything was serial in life," sometimes we multi-tasked and sometimes we paralleled life as well, these past few days had shown new light on to existing theories.
Open Up Your Heart And You Shall See The Wonder.

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