Oranges In Spain - II

Next week was another journey, there was a trip planned for Moga, another small town in Punjab.  I got up early on the appointed day, though I was already packed and ready to go, made a cup of tea for myself in the wee hours of the morning, they would serve breakfast in the train, and drove down in the cab to Anjali's place.  The hours were ticking and I knew that she would be ready too, she was fastidious about time and schedules.  We sat down at her house and started with our checklist, this included things to do, the important as well as the urgent.  It was a small world after all, Param had invited us to his friends place in Moga, said they were scheduling a house warming ceremony and we would be his guests.

Normally a house warming ceremony is a religious ceremony followed by a quiet lunch, I was eager on getting there in time for both of them, science was my religion however it paid dividends to see the ceremonious grandeur of a religion.  Religion in itself to me is a stream of philosophy that expects things from a person in the name of the guardian of religion.  It, like all creations of man kind is systematic, in the true sense of the word, if the logic behind the system is rotting then the system would too.  I was curious as to what would be the outcome of the ceremony, most religious systems have an outline as to what they expect as the final outcome.  If the outcome is reached then the ceremony is deemed to be successful, else you perform another similar ceremony.

Time is the greatest healer, I have realised that and though everyone is running short of it, it is sciences way of telling us that it is no beautician.  When we finally got into the cab, Anjali was all dressed up and ready to move, she had applied mascara, a little bit of lipstick, though she didn't like too much of makeup, and was wearing her earrings.

"I want to get my nose pierced, do you think that is a good idea, " she said as the driver put the cab in the gear.
"I have never tried it," I said equally sure that there was nothing more exciting than fresh in the morning.
"It should look good on me."
I breathed in some fresh air, and it cleared up my hair enough to start listening to her, I always listened to her, no matter what the state of my mind.
"I think it would too, piercing is an art, and it becomes very few people.  Its an artists dream of what the world would be if we carried our ornaments with us at all time."
"I think the primitive man had it all made up, there were flowers to breath, fresh air to live in and good food to eat," she said curiously about what I meant, in short she was prodding me into explaining what I had just said.
That was the thing about Anjali and me, we were so comfortable with each other, that reason never came into our relationship, we just assumed that we would get all our answers through one another and that's how things did come to pass eventually.

"The primitive man and the shape of the world as we see through rose tinted glasses is an artists dream, we forget that there was disease, wars and famine to deal with.  Society had no structure during those days, wars were fought simply to please the whims and fancy of the royalty.  I don't see the morality in those times."
"What about present times?" she said agreeing.

We had reached the railway station and all this talk of wars was getting me into a state of mind that I had been before and didn't like it so much.  I enjoyed Anjali's company and wanted to talk about her, so I bought her favourite chocolate from the vendor on the platform, that generally got her in a mood.  Anjali was fantastic with relations, if I told her of something that happened with me at work, she would immediately be able to get to the root cause of the clash or contradiction if there was one.

"Did you get my magazine?"she said as she munched on the chocolate.
"I did, there is the Femina, Cine Star, and got myself a designer manual too."
"I don't like travelling too much, but for you anything," she said back in the mood for some magic.
"Thank you."
"Didn't Priyanka Chopra start dating someone else," she said referring to the famous Indian Film Star.
"Yeah believe so."
We moved into the coach and took our seats while the porter loaded the luggage onto the overhead storage space.
"Sir Rs 100," he said in toned down Hindi.

I handed him the currency amount he asked for, and settled down with Anjali who was all ready for the trip with her earphones and Ipod plugged in.
"Isn't she seeing Shahid?" I asked her, prodding her now.
"Cool dude that one."
"I believe all relations are meant for a certain purpose."
She flipped through one of the magazines, "Relationships are symbiotic, Param for instance, gets as much sustenance from you as he gets from his workshop."
"You think so," I asked unsurely.
"Of course, that's why he talks to you, he believes in you and your philosophy of life."

I liked that fact that she was answering me in this instantaneous, free spirited that she was, when her replies were from heart, one just knew.
"Listen to this," she said as she handed me the earphones and I hooked them on my head.
"That's Rashmi Bansal isn't it ?"
"Thats correct."
"Phenomenal what they do with books nowadays," I was enthralled by "Connecting the Dots" and wanted to listen more, but handed over the earphones to her.

The train had started to move, this journey that we had started some two years back was finally beginning like it was moving forward.  My days of lateral thinking and knowledge gathering was over, I was finally getting knowledge through the frontal plane.  The crowds of the city faded into the distance, and the mustard fields started appearing, this was country and we would get down at Ludhiana.  Anjali was still listening to the Audio Book when I fell asleep, I knew she would knock over ideas with me soon as I woke up and she had heard enough of the book to talk about it.  This was going to be another fabulous journey.
"Time's the Greatest Healer, But a Poor Beautician."

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Oranges In Spain

Anjali was screaming at me, she had seen me smoking a cigarette too many and she didn't like it, not that she was a teetotaller but what with me smoking so much, I understood that she was concerned for my health.  Smoking got my mind going and I had to decide on an alternative to it now, if she didn't like it then I would give it up.

"You have to control this craving you have now, there will be times when it will hit you that it spoils your health," she said with a grouch on her face.
I grimaced.
"Look at yourself right now, a male in the peak of his health, why do you want to spoil that outlook."
I feigned an apology.
"Did you have a good day at work ?" I asked
I waited with bated breath and then she replied back, "It was not so good today, there was too much of work and everyone was too busy."
"That's terrible," I sighed with relief, happy to get the conversation going again.

Then suddenly the storm settled in and I was happy to have her back in the conversation.  Cigarettes and morals do they have a co-relation I wondered and obviously they did.  Morals are the code that we live by day in and day out, the unwritten golden rule book that is embedded in our head.  Upbringing and exposure to the outside world shape our values.  Anjali had always told me, morals are mistakenly associated with some kind of rigidness and uprightness.

As the case may be, the connotation that word brings up has nothing to do with the true value of the word itself, the snickering in the corridors notwithstanding, it is important to live by a moral code, to have values that you can adhere to.
"Did you buy yourself a pack again ?" she asked softly now.
"Just three cigarettes to last me the day," I said wondering how to give up this habit.
"Quit the habit and you are going to be new man.  Cigarettes are great if you wish to smoke up with a friend, but as an addiction they are not nice.  Quality in life is about being able to use stuff in a controlled manner."

We were seated in the living room of her house, it was really pretty with interiors done by her and a friend of hers, the paintings on the walls were resplendent in their glory.
"Too much of anything is not good," I said to no one in particular but myself, I think.  She heard me nonetheless,
"I work 12 hours a day nowadays and find myself adrift, had it not been for our conversation at the end of the day I wouldn't be able to qualify an analysis."
"Quality is in the head I think, every thought that you think needs to be tagged by excellence.  Friend of mine doing a Spanish Language Course, Geetika, used to think that translation was the way to go, she got into a translation course, excelled and did her internship in Spain, got back and got into a great job as a translator."

I finished off petting Romeo who was seated on my feet, got up and got myself an orange, I loved oranges, maybe I would replace my addiction for cigarettes with Oranges.
"So you were saying .....," she wanted me to continue.

"Spanish is a good language to do, hard work though and then suddenly she saw that if she managed to get enough people hooked on to her command of the language, there would be clients who would want to get two plus two equals five variety, her friends encouraged, I remember Prerna who told her that she had contacts in the diplomatic enclave that would get Geetika running while she was still doing her internship."
Anjali brushed her long hair and was thoughtful, "You don't think she could have managed to live without Prerna's Diplomatic contacts during her internship."

Its finally about training our minds into believing that what we want from life is available to us within our sphere of values, the longer we stick to our values the more people we influence into believing that the code that we live by is correct.  The philosophy is not only tenable it also works.  I decided that the first thing I would do the next morning is to list out a code or values that I wanted to imbibe in my life.  If that meant spending two hours every morning imbibing and inculcating these values then I would spend that time working on this.

"What is Geetika doing these days ?" Anjali asked.
"Another hardworker like you, she is travelling this week."
"Does she travel often ?"
"Not much but enough to keep her busy."

"When Life Gives You a Lemon, You Have Lemonade."

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The Pyramid Of Planning

The pyramid of planning is about being able to deconstruct everything that is not required during the day.  For instance, there may be activities during the day that are inevitably lost in the daily humdrum of life and these activities may not be required for further perusal.  These need to be deconstructed and by that I mean that they need to be built from grounds up again.  

Anjali had been facing a lot of flak at work, she loved her job but with every available ounce of her energy going into the work itself, she was unavailable to think through the complete process, so to say that the big picture was missing.

"The day was awful, boss is turning hostile, there are people who are shouting at each other and I hardly get time to think at work," she said in a sad tone.  "There is one particular guy in the office who keeps up with this charade of extensive work while he actually does nothing."

"Have you spoken to somebody about it ?"

"Who do I talk to, they all seem distant and far away," she said with melancholy.

"This may be the time to sit back everyday in the morning and think about the overall scheme of things in the office."

"I seem to be doing things at work that have no particular significance to my day."

"Why don't you deconstruct," I said knowing that she would probably not understand immediately.

I had driven a bike during my college days, it was an old machine with a feel of a friend, I had been driving it for over 4 years and still thought nothing of replacing it. It broke down on the old highway to Lucknow one day and I sat there waiting for it to cool down, it was evidently overheating.  The idea being that the key word here was "evidently", there was no logic to this, but the cylinder was hot and the exhaust was too.  I waited for it to cool down so that I could at least touch it to work on it.

The thought that it was hot was predominant on my mind and so according to this logic that staying in my mind I had to wait for it to cool down. While waiting under the tree I could see a few butterflies that flew through over flowers, they were buzzing through without a sound, there was logic here too, it looked peaceful and very serene apart from me with my bike waiting for it to cool down.  It was a typical case of a conflict, one that arose from mother natures peaceful environment and man's creation having broken down in midst of it.

When conflicts arise in our vicinity, our first thought is to fight them, the peaceful environment disturbed my state of mind which was in state of conflict, so I took out my notebook and started writing notes in them, overheating can occur due to the following things :

1. Spark Plug

2. Engine Cylinder

3. Clogged Air Filter

If this was the case then each of these items would have to be evaluated and the activity that was not required needed to be broken down into its smaller part.  I carefully opened the spark plug, the butterflies had strangely vanished now to be replaced by chirping birds and it seemed that nature was moving things to a rhythm.

The spark plug gap was mismatched, the cylinder though the head had not been opened yet seemed intact. I let the cylinder stay where it was, would look at it when I got to a workshop, and took out the slider that matched the spark plug gaps and set the gap to the exact measurement.  It required a little bit of effort, however it was plain to see where the problem lay, the spark plug is a device that generates the spark to ignite the fuel mixture which is a combination of air and fuel, this mixture is pumped into the engine cylinder using the jets and then the spark plug ignite the mixture at the right time, this is the combustion cycle and though the spark plug is a small part it is a very critical part, the timing is important.

Anjali returned with a smile on her face, "Good Day, travelled to a couple of sites and then returned later to office everything working as planned."

"So what was unusual about the day and how did it work out ?" I asked curious as to how she had deconstructed the unwanted activities.

"I spoke to the boss when I was writing my schedule for the day, she told exactly what her deadlines were and that sorted the contradictions.  I had few activities that seemed large for the day but then on getting the big picture they seemed unimportant."

"Contradictions are a big part of our lives and it makes sense to honour them."

"I will get back to these unwanted tasks later in the month, but today they weren't required and everybody agreed." she said happily.

I had understood what she was saying, we went back to the interdependence part and she had carried the concept back to her professional life.

"The only thing that works is what sells."

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Memoirs of a Red Rose

The occasional hiccup notwithstanding, things were beginning to look up, I had taken the car in the morning for a drive, the streets were empty and stark, it was cold but no fog and I stopped by at a 24x7 for a bite and a cup of coffee.  My mind had been running while I had been driving the car, thoughts were clear though and one particular item that joggled my memory was about mental independence.  As I was served coffee, I started to mix the sugar with it, the bright lights outside the cafe caught my attention, one particular street lamp on the street was glowing bright and there were light moths crowding around its facade.  What did the moth see in the lamp, did it see brightness in the endless darkness of the night and so crowded around it till the break of dawn.

I saw the street lamp was synonymous with a giant woman, she had a head that glowed bright and the moths wanted to get into the lamp, "open the lamp cover," they called out, for we seek the nectar of light that the lamp emanates and the lamp had it not been for the cover over the bulb would have been sucked into the vortex of desire.  

"Your breakfast sir," she said as she served me, the name tag on her shirt said Angel, and I immediately decided that she was one.

"Could I get some salt and pepper, they seem to be missing here."
"Yeah sure, you are up early ?"

"Couldn't sleep," I said taking her cue and striking a conversation.

"I do night duties around here and never get to sleep during the night any hows."

"But the job keeps me busy," she said smiling.

"Your personal life must be havoc, what with the night job, do you have a boyfriend," I asked her directly.

"Yeah, Shivir does night duty too, so its fine."

"Things around here in the night get lonely, so I work up the coffee machine and clean up the counters, I also try my hand at some mental arithmetic.  There is pleasure in numbers, I count and recount the money, do the accounts and that keeps me from falling asleep," Angel said with the same smile on her face, she was busy while she arranged my breakfast for me.

The thing about mental independence is that we all seek refuge from the thoughts that fly to our head and these are probably a result of exposure to the world, exposure that with it brings new thoughts and changes to our behaviour.  People who are mentally independent see the world with their own eyes and do not seek to challenge the authority of others who are on a different path.  Angel kept busy with numbers because that is the way she could maintain her balance during the idle time at work, a simple calculation would pep up her mind and she could relate the numbers in her memory to the times in college that she had simple calculations.  Memories of her friends came back to her and she would be transported into a different world.

More important than independence is a term called by many as interdependence, people depend on each other for tasks and activities in professional life and in personal life we depend on each other for emotional well being.  Interdependence has much deeper meaning and is often mistaken by people as being weak and open to outside influences, but it is this very fact that brings rejuvenation to the mind, food for soul is found is found in our love for others and our ability to build relationships during tough times.

"Was the breakfast good sir," Angel had a schedule to keep and she was back to clean the table.

"It was fantastic, this is the best breakfast I have had in days," I replied back.

"What about those flowers, do you get them fresh everyday," I was curious.

"They get delivered here."

"They look absolutely fresh and in the Sun they can look real nice, I have a thing for flowers, I like growing them and talking to them.  They bring out the best in life, I really like that Chrysanthemums you have got there," I said still talking.

"I like flowers in my hair, Shivir likes it too," she said coyly. People are a little hesitant about talking about their personal life to strangers and she opened up now.

"You planning to get married," I asked her.

"I hope to," she said.

"These days when I think of relationships I think about them as flowers, with pretty petals to look at and thorns to cut.  The most deadliest of all relations are the hard thorned rose, they have a combination of pleasure and pain."

She had started to listen raptly and I knew I would come to this place more often.

Never Give Up Hope and Keep Working Hard.

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Roses On Steroids

There were a million thoughts flying in my head this week and I had to get them organized to make something of this week, and I had to succeed this week.  Organization is a very critical aspect of planning, everybody plans, some plan because it fills up their week, others because it gives their mind the satisfaction that it craves and then there are these who plan because they must to survive.  Occasionally the enormity of the task in hand takes precedence over its importance.  Differentiation between the urgent and the important is the key, important tasks make or define us, urgent tasks are always on ones head as something that occurs because the importance was ignored in the first case.

"Is there something that is important enough for somebody to give it your time, determine that first," Param was adamant on this one.
"How do we determine whether something is important or not ?" I vaguely understood what he was saying, but wanted him to be more explicit in his thoughts.
He pointed to the wrench lying on the shop floor, "That is a tool I use for tightening nuts, it comes in many makes and to get the job done I have to get the right combination of the nut head and the correct size."
"But that is true for any task, checking the correctness has nothing to do with it, if I was to use a spanner I would still have to get the correct size," I countered.
"The right tool for the right task is important, urgency is what the machine owner has in his mind, to get the job over with as soon as possible and get the machine on the road," he said trying to explain his thoughts and getting a clear understanding of what I was saying.

In all my life or at least in my past life, and that happened to be some 3 years back, I had been a dedicated soul as direct as possible and truly motivated towards my work, success when it came elated me.  I realize that now, to maintain a balance in life it is important to have your thoughts structured for the morning, I have started to divide my thoughts as Big Rocks for the day, week, month and the year.

Anjali had been busy with her job leaving me time to do a lot of thinking, I was organizing my life around her and we both liked it that way, it gave us a connect to each others life.  I didn't like the thought that I was spending less time with her but then organizing ones life around one another was going to pay dividends.

"Did you get time to pick up my mail," she asked.
"I did and its lying on the table."
"Do you realize we had planned that trekking trip and never made it there."
"Its got colder, hasn't it ?"
"Still could go," she said eyeing that pretty rose plant on the balcony, "it needs some trimming, you haven't got around to picking up those garden tools have you."
"I got the shearer and trimmer in that cupboard behind you."
"Do you think next week is a good idea to go for the trip ?"
"Would you be able to get a leave ?" I asked, I  knew her job was keeping her extremely busy and taking time out would be a task for her.  Time is always short, no matter who you are and what you do, there is an old saying that says, "Whether its the Cheetah, the Tiger or the Deer, no matter who you are, come morning they must all run."
She laughed out loud, "Where did you pick up that from, Webster ?"
"The Zoo noticeboard."

If we were going to go on the trip together, it would require kits to be organized, bookings and a car, I would want to rent one rather than going in my own.  I owned a sleeping bag that I had bought a long time ago, but a general checklist would be required and things would be needed to be bought, a schedule organized.  I had my writing that would have to be put on the back burner for 3 days so I decided to get a piece of paper and made a check list :

Travel documents (passport; extra passport photos; itineraries, etc.)
_Money: Convertible currency in cash 
_Credit/Debit cards.
_Day pack to carry your personal needs during the day
_First aid kit.
_Medication/prescriptions – ask your doctor about your specific needs.
_Prescription glasses and contact lens solution if required
_Small Alarm clock
_Torch/flashlight/headlamp
_Insect repellent
_Refillable water bottle and water purification tablets
_Sunscreen, hat and sunglasses
_Layerable, flexible clothes that are easy to wash and dry. Don’t overpack.
_Lightweight travel towel
_Ear plugs eye mask
_Comfortable walking shoes
_Camera, film and/or memory cards with spare batteries
_Raincoat/umbrella
_Waterproof jacket
_Extra warm clothing during winter
_Personal hygiene products.
_2 season sleeping bag 
_Socks
_Slide on shoes or sport shoes for wearing in teahouse or camp. 
_Waterproof, thigh-length jacket. 

and this was more comprehensive than what we wanted, now the idea was to brainstorm and get the checklist down to what was important, as it turned out, we could avoid things like "Slide on Shoe" and "Passport" since we were going to be travelling within the country.  I wasn't sure what I was going to be doing with "Layerable Flexible Clothing" but I had written it down nonetheless.

The important was obviously what would fetch results during the whole trip and the checklist was a start, Anjali was still fiddling with the shearer, she was trying to get it to work and finally it clicked open, she delicately cut the thorns from the plant and then trimmed it down a little further, "The leaves further down are pretty but the foliage would prevent more rose flowers from coming up."

"Where did you get this plant from ?"
"From the nursery down the road."
"They are pretty."
"As pretty as the bee that just flew by your nose."
"Yeah you have got some pretty creatures around here, didn't I spot the butterfly around here like right now."

Now it was my turn to laugh, the prettiest butterfly was right in front of me.
"Give a man fish and he will eat the day, teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime."

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Mechanics of Intimacy

Ever wonder what it means to be a highly skilled technician, it means constant devotion to your job, it means to have an intuitiveness and the logic, and a constant endeavour to thwart Mother Nature's design on corrupting manly creations.  To let Nature takes its course is the but obvious scheme that man can have, and when things are going fine there is no will to change it and rightly so, there should obviously be no change in the scheme of nature unless there is an anomaly in the design.  Take for instance the microbial virus and bacteria that cause disease and death, if it is Nature's will to destroy then we must thwart its purpose there and then.

A skilled technician though technically sound and logical, and dedicated to his job has the lost the feel for love and that's the point I was trying to make to Param that last evening.  Owning a machine is less of a pride if you don't fall in love with it, and over prolonged periods of time there have been owners who would rather maintain their machine than give them away in exchange for new ones.  An old machine has this feel of "YOU" to it, there is comfort and elegance and it is a depiction of personality of the fond owner, less a case of deprivations, the owner to the contrary will run that machine every day even if its clocked over a 100,000 miles.  

Anjali had woken up by the time I reached her place, she had already had breakfast, "where do you want to go today, it is a weekend and I was thinking of going for a movie."

"That would be fine with me," I said without thinking, I would go anywhere she wanted to go, it gave me great pleasure enjoying her company was foremost in my mind.

"Which should we watch ?"

"Anything," I said.

The eagerness was already evident on her face and she started to make all the right moves, walked into the dressing room to check herself out, I meanwhile started playing with Romeo, this one was happy to see us back and was prancing around with glee, dogs have this way of soothing the nerves and I was happy that I had gifted her this puppy.  Romeo was 8 months old now and full grown, he enjoyed the early morning walks and that gave me intense pleasure to see him running around after the pigeons in the park.  The only thought that crossed my mind was that I should do this to more of my friends, gift them puppies that allowed them to see for themselves the love that the animals showered on you, maybe I would do that with Param soon, he had turned out to be such a great friend by showing me a side of life irrefutably his.

"You still love the sight of Romeo, don't you ?" she asked as we walked into the theatre.

"I love that dog."

"He means much more to you than a mere animal," she queued up at the counter for tickets.

"Actually a buddy."

"He waits for you every morning and he missed you during that trip." she took out the money from her purse and paid for the tickets.

"Ain't I allowed to pay for them ?"

"I got it covered, you just keep Romeo and me happy," evidently she was loving this talk.

"Still thinking of Param ?" she prodded me.

"Obviously his philosophy is on my mind.  He didn't say much but his actions showed the kind of life he had been living."

"He is in love with his machines, I think the thought of losing them or not being able to fix them gives him a headache."
"I think so too."

"He sees his God in them," Anjali said matter of factly.

"Isn't his workshop cluttered, I mean how does he find his tools of the trade in that workshop.  I barely could walk a few steps without running into something scattered on the floor," she said.

"Yes, that is correct."

"There is something about the man that says that he has God with him, his work happens because he is so well motivated and so focussed on the job, runs a very clean shop."

"A very God fearing man."

Two hours at the theatre and it was a very interesting movie, a mixture of heady romance filled with action packed sequences.  We sat in the theatre looking transfixed at the movie screen and eating popcorn gleefully and sipping on ice filled coke glasses.  There was pleasure in company and the movie was inconsequential, it was the feeling of having witnessed something together that gave us that intimacy.  Relationships thrive on intimacy, friends crave for it and lovers look forward to it, and people gel together.

"Relations are what make the world go around."

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The Rose And The Myna

There were these roses growing in my balcony, for a long while I had thought of them as just flowers, but this morning on my return from Nabha, I re-looked at them and saw that the small buds had grown to an especially large bloom.  I bent down to smell it and there was a sweet smell typical of a rose that emanated from the bloom.  It was finally turning cold, the Sun was out and the crowd beneath the balcony in the market was buzzing with activity.  There was a piece of me that wanted to have a cup of coffee, but then I refrained from it, I was after all going to Anjali's house later and that's when I would do my cooking.

Anjali had been tired of her journey and had told me that she would sleep immediately, she could continue to sleep till late, she tired easily and needed her beauty sleep.  The journey back had been uneventful, the rush of meeting Param had been calmed by the constant rattling of the wheels under the train as they commuted on the track.  A cab had been waiting for us at the station and we had driven back home like before. Param had been a revelation, both in his attitude and his zest for life, I had rethought my philosophy while with him and constant interaction with him for three days had left me feeling fresh and a tad thoughtful.  Come to think of it Param had been doing the same work for over a decade, he hardly had time to think about life but work had dominated his mind, so he saw his God in his work.  While he worked on his machines, his total attention was devoted to it, there was a sought of nothingness that came from hard work, my mind revelled at this thought, was it nothingness after all that I sought ?

The bell rang at the door, the maid was in already, it was turning 8am, she would be cooking breakfast and lunch for me, nothing got me going than cooking but she was always a great help, after all what better thought than having flour already kneaded ready to be cooked for pancakes.  I walked down from balcony and opened the door for her, my thoughts on still Param,
"Good morning," she popped out, with a smile on her face.
"Hmmm," I mumbled under my breath and as she walked in, I shut the door behind her.
Soon enough the kitchen fire was burning and contrary to my advice she handed me a hot cup of tea while the breakfast was being made.
"Isn't that a cake in the refrigerator ?" she asked me.
"Yeah I think so," I replied not thinking.
"Why didn't you eat it in the morning when you got up."
"I got in late last night,wasn't too hungry."
"Have it now," she said with motherly concern on her face.
I picked up a slice and started munching on it, there had only been typical Punjabi food with Param and his wife, when he had made me a drink the last evening, he had taken me to the garden and told me that today he was a happy man, what with a new workshop and lots of work under his belt.
"Do you want another cup of tea," she asked inquiringly, she had sensed that I was distracted and maybe thinking of something else.
"Yes, I could do with some more."
Immediately another cup was brewing on the burner, this time I could smell the fresh Darjeeling tea and could almost feel the gears in my mind beginning to move, the romantic in me forever wanted to live in a dream world, Param's strong sense of mechanics had revealed another world to me, one where nothing existed but the creation of man.  His level headedness had inspired me, I saw a form in the coffee machine that lay on the table top of the kitchen, there was filler, a beautiful body, some buttons and a cable that attached the plug to the socket.  But beneath this form was a function that had been created by man too, a function that was dictated by business logic, the function that each of these equipments performed was formed by their eventual users and their utility.  The more perfect this logic the better it became for the end user and more money the function fetched.

What Param was doing was a small scale version of what large scale factories would do, build machines that had better utility and maintain them for years.  The idea as Param would say, "Perform tasks that fetch the maximum benefit."
"Nothing fetches more benefit than simple pleasures in life," I had countered, standing firm on my logic of life.
"But then why do you dream of writing this book ?"
"Because it gives me pleasure," I had replied with a smile on my face.
"And also if it sells, you would make money, probably enough for you to write another and that would fetch you more money.  Pleasure and money go hand in hand," he sounded to his own logic.

Breakfast was ready, and the maid was quickly assembling it on the dining table, I walked from the kitchen to the table, there was a newspaper lying to the corner, she had picked it up from the door and kept it on the table, the headlines were the usual, politics and more politics, I quickly turned to the sports page and read through the cricketing and footballing stories.  There was a test match going on somewhere and somewhere else Real Madrid would be playing Barcelona in the afternoon, there was also an editorial on match fixing that caught my eye and started to read it. Five minutes into it and I heard her chiding me to have breakfast that brought me out of my reverie.
"Breakfast is getting cold."
"You bet it is but I am not going to let it grow any colder," saying this, I dug into the scrambled egg and cheese with bacon that was there.  With a few munches in my stomach I was already feeling fine, it was going to be a great day.  Like Param would say, " First things First, a happy stomach ordains a Happy mind."

This feeling of bliss perpetuated my mind as I drove down to Anjali's house, thoughts of Param and his friendship made me a happy man, there was a reason for which I had met him, and that reason was evident enough now, there is duality in nature as well as in science and evidence of it had been found in my trip to Nabha.
"A Rose By Any Name Is Still A Rose."

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The Rye In The Whisky

Dinner with Shiromani and Param at their residence was fantastic, they were the best of hosts and large hearted folks, never was there a dull moment in the conversation, it was almost as if they liked us and had done that for ages.  Shiromani was a school teacher and her conversational tone was one of as if she was speaking to young school going kids.  I liked her instantly, she had started calling me a brother soon after we had entered her home.  The house was a regular medium sized bungalow that had a womans touch to show for with pride.  There was not a dull moment soon as we entered, there was coke to be served along with punjabi snacks called fried pakoras followed by a sweet called Rasmalai.  Param was constantly rushing to the kitchen bringing out stuff she had made while Shiromani served it with a chefs pride.

"Did they manage to book a plot ?" asked Shiromani, looking at me but speaking to Param.

"They did look interested and they have till tomorrow morning to decide."

"It's a fabulous road to buy land on and build a house, either one of you could do that."

"Give them time Shiromani, they still have to decide," Param lovingly chided her.

"These plots are going away like hot cakes, pretty soon there will be none left to decide on," she was equally adamant.

"Friend of mine, her husband bought a plot on the Circular last week and already the prices have climbed by a quarter."

"Outsiders need to evaluate their options carefully before buying a land here, after all we are a small town.  We are where we are and right now, that's us folks, they on the other hand come from large towns and used to fast paced life," and Param got up to get some more Coke.

It was a cold and dry night, I would have preferred to have some Whisky but knew that travel and wine didn't do me justice, Param was already on his second Patiala Peg.  The Patiala Peg is the largest of measures that gets served in India, it is 75 ml of whisky and a meagre 10ml of water, Param was a large hearted man with an enormous appetite and a great sense of humour that begun to flow once he had liquor in him.

"Shiromani makes some pakoras that could make a man drop dead," he said with a mischevious smile on his face.

"Yes," said Shiromani after a thought, she was used to her husband pulling her leg and always considered his comments for a moment before answering back, and this time she decided to refrain from commenting.

That didn't stop Param of course, "Last she made it for me this Sunday, I slept non stop for 4 hours that too without having even a drop of whisky."

"Hell, I am thirsty again," he dropped in a line with a smile again, carefully avoiding the pakoras.

I got up to make him another drink, we had this old joke from years ago, its cheaper to drink whisky than water, as I made him another peg, and carried it over to the table, he was in great mood as a matter of fact he was always in a great mood with friends.  Long ago when we had got together and wanted to get the bike repaired, he had suggested the following things to me, never ride a bike without the basic neccessity kit which included the medical aid kit, a puncture repair kit and the tools for repair, when he had suggested that to me I had realised that I had never realised that certain tools would be required to carry out repair and in other circumstances I wouldn't even have thought of a puncture repair kit.  As it turned out, when the road is lonely you need the tools of the trade with you.

There were a lot of trophies on the mantle and I was wondering where he had won those trophies, some of the trophies came with price money and as he told me, he had used the price money to purchase the shop from where he was operating now.  These are the signs of hard work and every trophy had a nameplate attached to it, I asked him about the largish trophy which glittered in the overhead light, he said that one was the best and he had won it during a mechanic competition that his previous boss had recommended he attend.  Without that recommendation there was no way that anything could have been achieved within this short span of time.
"Why Be The King, When You Can Be The God."

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The Science Of Love

Param met us outside the hotel and we sat in his car to head to the Gurudwara, the asphalt road was broken in some patches but mostly it was smooth sailing.  Anjali was carrying some books and magazines she had purchased at the store and these were mostly the traditionally popular ones, there wasn't a bookshop on Circular Road but she was happy with her purchases.  We arrived at the Gurudwara which was a classic construct, large wide entrance, doors to all four sides with the holy book placed in the middle which was being read by a blue turbaned gentleman.  On top flew a saffron flag that flew on most of the temples, we sat in the main hall for almost 1/2 hour and let peace distill our minds.

"It is extremely peaceful," Anjali remarked with a cherubic smile on her face. "It must be the forest behind this place, nature has this way of calming nerves," I countered.
She smiled at my retort, as we got up to have the holy Prasad and Amrit, we walked away from the place in a much peaceful state of mind than we had entered.

Peace is directly proportional to how much we are able to resolve the controversies in our world, or more precisely in our minds.  The human mind seeks religion to resolve the contradictions, and it has been said by none other sharper mind than Einstein,

                                       "Worshippers of Science take to it like a religion."

"In many parts of the worlds, people tend to find peace by remaining anonymous and continuing to do their work irrespective of the state of affairs.  The Cosmos is a composition of many laws that take us in many different directions, for instance when we come to the temple of God there is an expectancy to do certain things," I said to no one in particular.
"So what you are saying is that religion is an institution too," she asked inquisitively, while Param continued to mumble his prayers to the Wahe Guru under his breath.
"All institutions have a purpose that is solely meant to benefit them."
"Then why go to the temple ?" she was prodding me into answering now.

Lightening Flashes that we have so far discussed occur at various points in the continuum of life, these are possible solutions and will occur at different places while in conversation with different people and what more likely peaceful place than the temple where the mind is rested.  The mind is peaceful when it has reached a logical conclusion about the contradictions that it has encountered, to find the universal laws of the world is the first requirement of the Cosmos, and humans must in whatever way align themselves with these laws.  All the work that we do, the places that we visit, our thoughts and philosophies are all meant to reach a conclusion by aligning themselves with the Cosmos.

An unconnected mind wanders and so institutions find a place in our society - temples, governments, colleges, schools are all part of a system to connect us to the man created scientific pool.  To attack an institution is to attack the outcome of a system and not the root cause of why most people are not connected to the universal law.  It is man's wish to play God that makes him create his own knowledge pool where the Cosmos is totally disconnected and therefore an unpeaceful, dissatisfied society prevails.

Trip to the Gurudwara over, it was time for some Lunch at the local Dhaba and there were numerous ones, one particularly recommended by Param was located on Circular Road itself and we walked in.  The Punjabi speciality is Daal Makhani and Khasta Roti, which translates to a fascinating meal.  We ordered some Kadhai Paneer with it and sat down to talk.  The place was crowded with customers walking in and out, the general chat was in Punjabi and multitude color turbans ruled the roost.

"Shiromani sends you her regards," Param said.
"And she would be waiting for in the night with dinner."
"Looking forward to it, she cooks well I know that, the Dhaba food wouldn't compare to anything that she makes, look at those food bearers, they seem to be rushing around," I said pointing to men carrying trays loaded with food.
"She loves cooking and the secret to her cooking is in her spices."
"Punjabi Masala to go with Tandoori chicken, hmmm ?" Anjali popped in, she loved her cooking and this conversation always got her going.

"The Thing About Friends is That They Always Love You No Matter Who You Are."

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A Small Town Fairy Tale

After breakfast, we decided to take a walk down the local market place on the Circular Road, it was a wide road with shops littered around, I spotted a Punjab and Sind Bank and we quickly walked down to the ATM, Punjab and Sind bank is one of the largest banks in Punjab and requires no introduction to the local residents, this branch was also fairly big with an ATM located at the corner.  We walked in to see a camera on the top, Nabha, as I had mentioned before is a fairly modern town for its size, I withdrew some money.  As we walked out, Anjali spotted a large grocery shop, I followed her as she wanted to buy some Chocolates and Chips, they were her favourite and she picked them up with glee.

"I like this town, its noticeably small and yet seems like a fabulous place to stay, this road itself, did you see the size of some of the plots, they are so large," she said pointing to the west side.
I shaded my eyes with my hand and looked where she was pointing to, "They do seem pretty big actually, we should walk down to a Realtor to check the prices out."

"I could buy land here, build a house and settle down."
"This is the country, Anjali, investment ofcourse right ?"
"Towns like these are offbeat, there is more life in the offbeat than than fast paced life of the city, people here," she said pointing to the groceries owner, "he is so content, he wouldn't want to go out of the town even if they gave him a million bucks."
"That's a thought, after all Param has lived all his life here and never looked at the large townships of Ludhiana or Jallandhar."
"He said something yesterday that had my mind pacing, God resides within us and each of our creations."
"I noticed he didn't say in HIS creations, it was our creations he was referring to, wasn't he ?" she was as curious as me.

There was a tiller working on his harvester in the distance, these giant machines, they gave the sense of stability and comfort to the ordinary onlooker, they were built solid and were the creations of the mind, an idea, a concept that germinated in the mind.  Every part of it had been carefully thought about and crafted until it stood the test of time to do the job that it was supposed to.  The job of a harvester was to accomplish harvesting and it would do that time after time, year after year without a hint of dissatisfaction.  It knew what it was made for and knew its job well, it required a human to operate and that was the only help it needed, for all you know, to the human the machine that he operated was just a black box, a tool to achieve a mean to an end and never open to evaluate what it constituted.

Param had this intuitiveness to understand machines, faced with a problematic machine, he would look at from the artists perspective,
"If I open up a part, will it spoil the countenance and the image that the designer held for it."
Then he would closely look at the problem and find the right tools that lay scattered all across his workshop, grabbing one that fitted his mental image of the requirement and while still talking to the client begin to open up the machine, the cylinder-piston that he had worked upon years ago for me, still remained fresh in my mind till date as the most accomplished piece of work I had ever witnessed.

My bike had been misfiring and he had closely removed the pistons first and then slowly opened the cylinder, seen whether the piston needed to be replaced with an oversized one or just refurbished, and then once the measurement was over, had begun to work on fitting the new piston on to the machine, the cost of the cylinder is prohibitive and probably replacing the piston suited me just fine, but not once had he asked me whether I was okay with what he was doing.  That is what had impressed me, the work had not once dented my pocket and yet I had the perfect solution to my problem.

We all work at different jobs, sometimes not accomplishing what we set out, the point being that adequate planning is required to carry out jobs when one is an amateur or an apprentice then as one sets into the rhythm of things, over years, planning comes naturally, sometimes the work that overwhelms us needs to be handled first before it all gets too much.

"I lost you or what," Anjali asked, I seemed to be in a trance with my thoughts.
"Just thinking, the plot is a good idea."
"Lets walk in and check out a sample plot."
"Sounds good to me."
"Did you like the tea that you got at breakfast."
"The chef had made it just right.  I like Darjeeling tea, what variety was that ?"
"A Darjeeling classic it was, and the aroma was just perfect, I think it's the blend that is so perfect, they make the make the most perfect tea in Darjeeling, I was there once and the sprawling tea plantations on hill sides are awe inspiring."
"I just like the flavour, don't know if I will ever get to see a plantation."
"Why not ? We must plan our next trip there," I said, sounding surprised.
"Don't you a have a friend there who works for the government, the census department, you told me or something, what was her name ?" I continued.
"Debanjani, right I haven't met her in a long while."
"Just like I hadn't met Param for years."

As we continued talking, I was thinking,
"Overwhelmed Is a Phrase I Use For The Unplanned."

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Sunrises On The Empire

I woke up to a new day, it was bright with a hint of mist, coffee would be great I thought to myself and almost started smelling the aroma before I had even ordered it from room service.  I drew the curtains across and let the sunshine seep in, the curtains had these binds across their middle so when you tied the binds they looked triangular with curves.  I sat there waiting for Anjali to wake up, thought maybe I should call and wake her up to see the grandeur of a morning in Punjab but then desisted, she wanted to sleep so I allowed her to, the newspaper was tied to the door, so I opened the door to read it, "nothing in it," my mind told me and I continued to stare out of the window, the breeze was mild and the tree leaves moved in the breeze.  It was pleasant, and I was in a more pleasant state of mind than I had been in a long long time, nature had this way of settling the mind into a rhythm, it quietly woke you up and then gave you sights to wonder at.

I had always wondered at the Sun rise, thought it was the best time of the day and without knowing had continued to get up early morning, my body clock now attuned to the morning.  I quickly looked at the watch, it was 7am,  that gave me enough time to sit quietly and gaze out of the window, read the newspaper and then make up my wake up call to Anjali at 8am.  I always had carried this notebook with me, no matter what place or purpose of travel, I would deftly take down notes and make plans for the day.  My planning technique was a little different from the conventional one of writing down a time based daily planner.  People were often enamoured with filling up their day with tasks to do rather than accomplishing things during the day.

Institutions and Factories functioned that way, they would give employees tasks to do and time frame to achieve it within, so we ended up with a society that moved like tick tock but was purposeless.  People did 9-5 jobs and their employers want them to be at work no matter whether there is work or not.  Robots I called them and I think correctly so if they were satisfied with their routine.  This culture breeds dissatisfaction and the planning aspect of it needs to be re looked.

I quickly checked the places of interest at Nabha and jotted them down in my notebook with the agencies supervising the site's phone number.  With the sites neatly identified, I sat down to look at the marvel that was the laptop and the internet.  Amazing what the internet has achieved for lesser beings like me, it has brought to the fore public relations and put the commission agent out of the job.  Technology was not one of my favourite things to learn, however with the advent of it, I had picked up tit bits from my friends and colleagues to make a decent living of the money I spent on the laptop.

I looked at the time it was almost 8am and quickly made that call to Anjali, she woke up after a few rings, she sounded hazy which was the first sign of somebody who had slept well, I promised to have her breakfast ready in the dining room in 1 hour during which time she would get ready.  I also had to check Param's schedule, he too was an early riser but must have been busy otherwise he would have called me by now.  I jotted down in my notebook that I would call him in 1/2 hour while I ordered breakfast in the dining room.

The newspaper which I could have seriously used as toilet paper now was lying in a bundle near the coffee making machine, I tore an obituary item from it and looked at it, it said 10am and gave directions to the cemetery.  Most people would wonder what good it was to have obituary items listed in the newspaper, for me it served a purpose, it reinforced in me the belief that I was alive and that there was life to follow death.  If we were to visit the Gurudwara today, The Samadha Wala Gurudwara, then it would be with the thought of peace for the departed soul of a stranger.  The obituary read it was for a

                                      "Vaishali Chawla who departed for her
                                               heavenly abode yesterday
                                                     God Bless Her"

Strange as it may seem, there was nothingness in this world once the stories of yore had ended, I was in the dining room and quickly made that phone call to Param and told him what our plan was.  Busy as he was, he quickly fell in with where he would fit into it, the Gurudwara trip was very much on and he said the afternoon would make a good time to visit it and then the local market place to savour some of the food items, I was a foodie after all and as I looked at the breakfast menu, scrambled egg and bread with cheese sounded very appetising just as Anjali walked into the dining hall.

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The Feather In The Crown

Anjali was quiet and peaceful when she returned from the office nowadays, something had clicked in Ludhiana and that in itself was a lot to say, going to a strange place was never easy, but I think she had handled it well. Top that with having made a new friend in Shweta, I wasn't surprised at her wanting to do more trips like this, journeys had always set me thinking and more often than not the philosophical thought process would rub on to my fellow travellers.  I had already fixed a deadline for the next trip, a small town to the South of Punjab, Nabha, and the following weekend we took the train to head to the princely town of Maharaja Hira Singh. There was history to the town and and though it was small, with a population of 50,000 odd residents, the town is a thriving with activity.

When we reached Nabha, it was cold afternoon though the Sun was out and it was dusty, in general the state of the roads was a little on the broken side and it had been a bumpy ride to reach Nabha from Ambala.  The SaravPriya Hotel, Nabha is one of the budget hotels, Paramjit Singh, my friend and guide met us at the hotel, he had already booked two rooms for us.  

The biggish Punjabi Sardar gave me a large hug and patted me heartily on my back, "How have you been veerey."

"Lords mercy is on us."

"Wahe guru is always with us," he said jovially as he said a quick hello to Anjali, who had suddenly turned pensive, strange places initially always got her into that mood.

"Its pretty," she said staring at the lawn which centred rooms around it, there a few tables and chairs with umbrellas basking lonely in the sunlight. "I figure all the guests would be busy with their sightseeing, I don't see many around."

"You will in the morning," replied back with his usual large smile.

I had met Paramjit during my college days travelling on the bike to Patiala, he was a large hearted guy, and loved to drink and would worked hard at his motorcycle workshop near Patiala Gate.  He guided us to the rooms where our welcome drink awaited us, Anjali took to the flowers really well, they were a nice bunch of Orchids purple in color.

"These are so pretty."

"I had them ordered especially for you both," said Paramjit, "normally they put roses, but I was told that you liked Orchids."

Instinctly Anjali gave him a peck on the cheek, "Thank You."

Paramjit blushed, he was not used to public affection from woman, this was a small town and after all he was a mechanic, so what if a highly skilled and special one.

Most mechanics don't know what they are getting into when they open up a machine, they tinker over with the spanner, get the electronics in, open up the machine and then decide what to do and normally what they do is totally contrary to what the customer would want..  Machines are like relationships, not totally and the angle is not immediately evident, but what forms a machine is multitude of inter related parts and what is that if not relationships.  If people fit well into each others lives then what we get is a perfectly functioning machine that has a purpose.

Parmajit was a very intuitive mechanic, and when I met him during a college tour I had seen his workshop totally scattered with tools and machines.  To casual observer it might have looked like there was chaos all around, but Paramjit could find his way through the chaos, he would sit next to an open vehicle and without seeing what was happening pick up the right tool for the job.  He had during those days achieved the job of fixing the looseness in the cylinder-piston fit in 2 hours without even me knowing that the job was being done.

"How is the garage doing ?"

"The government has given me permission to acquire more land."

"Paramjit, my Dad once told me that he trusted mechanics more than Doctors," Anjali said.

"He He He, I don't know."

"Paramjit's wife cooks very well, how is she veerey ?" I asked, I had met Shiromani once, she was a strong willed woman who would never let Paramjit rest on his laurels.

"She is doing well, she cooked some Biryani and send it for you, I have it in my car."

"Will make piece meal out of it during dinner." All three of us laughed, the conversation was moving.

Paramjit lounged himself onto to large couch in the room and poured himself a drink of water, he had an Ipod attached to his waist and Anjali opened up her suitcase and took out some Bluetooth speakers.  She paired the Ipod with the Bluetooth speakers, and the sound of some blissful Jagjit Singh Gazals filtered the room.

I looked around, overlooking the balcony was a market place, and the main road, called the Circular Road on which the hotel was located led to a Gurudwara that I could see in the distance.

"That's the Samadha Wala Gurudwara, its located in the Beed Forest, and is a great place to visit, we will visit it tomorrow."

"Sounds like an interesting place to go to." Anjali smiled.

"Do they have animals in that forest."

"I think they do," said Paramjit.

"Not lions though, just some deers, buffulos, some Neel gaen and the likes.

"Where else can we go tomorrow ?" Anjali asked curiously.

"Well there is the Glaxo factory we can visit, I have visit planned, its popularly known as the "Horlicks" factory."
"I would love that, as also to meet your wife Param," Anjali replied back.

"Yes, then tomorrow we go to my house for dinner, Shiromani is a good cook," Paramjit replied back, I could see on his face that he had liked the idea of Anjali wanting to meet his wife.

I wondered at Params upbringing, a God fearing man, he was the perfect example of a morally upright person, religion played a huge part in his life, whether it be work or personal relations.  I had no right to ask him but I did ask a question that had been troubling me for a while, 

"Do you see Wahe Guru in your work ?"

"I often do and that as the case may be are two different Gods, the one that handles my work for me is so meticulous, there is wonder in almost every part of the machine that I fix, there is a method and logic to every part in which He resides, like he takes care of my machines for me, forewarns me when Mother Nature is out to seek revenge from the metal parts and provides me with logic to solve even the most difficult problems that SHE throws at me.

I stared at Param, my heart skipping a beat and my eyes wide open, this was the most profound logic I had heard in years, and the journey of my last two years seemed to be reaching a more forward looking thought. Nabha was going to be a fantastic outing, I could sense and that made me happy.

"All Fears and Phobias are So Revealed So That We Can Move Through"

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Steady As She Goes

Life had come to a standstill, I had this limp that was getting hard for me to fathom, I tried to remember where I might have picked it up and nothing came to my mind.  I looked at it closely, the right leg knee was looking red, there was a bit of broken skin around and it pained slightly when I pressed it.  The cold air had accentuated the pain and retarded the healing process.  Injuries hardly if ever daunted me, but this one had me a little pained and feeling out of sorts, the knee is a very sensitive part of the human anatomy and I suppose I had what is known as MCL in medical terminology, or Medial Collateral Ligament Strain and it was causing pain to the inner side of the knee.  All possibilities evaluated there was a chance that physiotherapy would ease the pain, I picked up the medical directory and looked up names of physiotherapists in the locality and there were plenty.

I slowly walked into the clinic the following day, and looked at the receptionist, she was a pretty lady with her hair neatly tied in a bun, "damn and she looked pretty," as pretty as the ultrasonic therapy machine lying in the corner.  She had these strands of hair that came out from the side, her nose was upturned and eyes glittered like diamonds, "she was brown eyed and fair skinned.  I looked her up from side to side and then where she was sitting, it was a bar stool kind of furniture which looked and sturdy and suited her just fine as well.  

"Is the Doc in ?" I asked still staring at her wondering at the marvel that I saw in front of me.

"He is in, do you have an appointment ?"

"Its kind of urgent actually."

"You could tell me."

"Do you think you could help ?" I asked again, was she a wonder rolled into one, my knee needed the soft touch, "after all everybody had assured me it was just a strain," it could have happened to anyone and I am sure I stood at the top candidate in the list.

She guided me into a room towards the side of the main doctors door, the room looked simple, "like all doctor rooms do," wasn't the typical room you had expect, it had curtains drawn and a bed with a bedsheet on it, there was a towel stand with a bunch of towels neatly wrapped and hung, "it all looked very fine," except for this giant machine to the side that said Electrosurgical Cautery, anyone familiar with physiotherapy understand it looks the giant building blocks, "legos look sweeter and more curvaceous," I quickly turned away and said immediately, "What next ?"

She guided me to the traction table and settled me nicely in, like a baby, " must have been a cast from the Nightmare on Elm Street," this baby was scared, "what next, damn did she have all planned then."  With my pants down and a greenish hospital gown around me, I was ready for a shot from the ultrasonic machine.  She quickly applied gel to my knee, it was warm and gluey, "and man was it cold," and she spread a lot of it on the knee region, then she brandished a magic wand from the machine and started to move it slowly on the knee. "Ouch," and she heard me and moved away from the bone.

Ten minutes of the machine and I was fine and rocking, it was like a dream, "as good as new she had assured me," I wasn't sure it was as good as new but it did looked somewhat repaired.  She adviced three sessions a week and told me to relax, it was going to be fine, "she looked finer than me," I just looked a shade paler after the session.

"As Good As New, Thats What They Told Me."

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The Cerebrum Trip

There was a lot of work the next morning to look forward to, I was thinking of it already as we boarded the cab at Delhi Railway Station that would take us to our homes, Anjali was sleepy and tired and she expressed it in as many words, she had work to go to also tomorrow morning but then she would think about it later.  The cab driver reversed the car out of the parking, the luggage was loaded and as he put the car into the first gear to move it forward, I smelt the night air of the metropolis again, I was relaxed, felt at ease with myself, something had gone right on this trip and my mind set about analysing it.

"You OK if I fall asleep."
"Go right ahead, I have the cabbie to talk to and the night to stare at, in any case it is only a 45 minutes drive and the traffic seems to be low."
"I don't know, all this talk has made me slightly dizzy."
"Sleep, I will wake you up."

As it had transpired, when we had setout on the trip I wasn't sure what to expect, we hadn't seen Shweta nor Arun for almost 3 years and it had occurred to me that people change over a period of time.  The first hint that everything was going to be alright was when Shweta had met us at the railway station, I had been expecting to see a chauffeur.   Over years that I had seen their relationship flourish, I had noticed a mark difference now, and the word to describe it was indifference.  Indifference had this unique quality of absolute disdain for everything that came into its path and it germinated from logic.

Anjali had started to snore softly already and I felt her dreaming, people who dream are most likely to remain in love, I made this intense statement to myself and then instantly regretted it.  Experiential theories are more closer to reality than observatory ones, lightening flashes that strike our minds come out of experience of a million of people who have travelled the same path as ours, I remember the flash that had come to me when I was going through a bad relationship, "Cut Those Strings," it said and I had followed that advice.  In retrospect here is what I should have done, taken in some more lightening flashes, waited for the one that seemed most appropriate and then test it out, before taking a decision.

I could locate the Moon above traversing a path across the sky, following the Sun from East to West, as its half globe lit up the sky in a dull suffused bluish white light, I smelt some coffee and looked around to see us pass a cafe, coffee always brought up fond memories of talks and moonlighting, of skinny dipping in wide water bodies and long drives with nothing but music and the bridge to nowhere.  Logic had this weird way of bringing up the most self content mind, some people resort to logic because they want to feel this separation from masses, an uplifted feeling where their cerebrum thinks of nothing but their own intellect as being superior.  Others think of it as a medium to quality in life and for still others it is an escape from the boredom and humdrum of routine life.

If logic were left to the first category of people there would be no love, no emotion and a nothingness stemming from self contentment.  That to me was indifference, a quality that the wannabies aspired to possess, an attitude that thrived in their social circles.  It was the third category that was of interest to me, love thrived in this category as they understood the duality of love.

Before I knew it 45 minutes had passed and I was home after having dropped Anjali to hers, I quickly changed and before going to sleep decided to open up pages of an old book I had been reading for a while.  Normally after a long trip it was wise to get my thoughts back together again.  I flipped through the pages before I fell asleep, mind at peace and the trip safely in the vicinity of my mind.

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The A'la Carte

The discrepancies in life were creeping up on her, it was obvious to Shweta, she was tired of being tagged the happy wife and she decided to correct that, soon as she had dropped these folks at the station, she headed back for the mall where they had had the first cup of tea with them.  She had been impressed with the conversation and the thought that they had given her.  She would follow up on what was best written in the golden rule book, and the first law said "listen".  The mall was unusually empty, there was no one around except the guards and few employees of the open stores.  M&S, Shoppers Stop, Louis Phillipe and all her other favourite outlets were closed, she wondered at that, then moved to the ground floor from the third floor to the open coffee shop that was still open, it was late evening and there were some customers, the bar stools, unusual in a coffee shop were empty, she planted herself on one of the bar stool and started to think.

"Maam the usual coffee," said the man seated on the coffee table behind her to the stewardess.
"Yes sir," she replied back, a young girl barely 25 and managing the show at this largish outlet.  She was dressed in a beige skirt and a white top and looked like she could be one of the executives in the corporate.

Shweta had worked herself for a large financial conglomerate and she missed those days, her mind had been pre-occupied those days as she juggled her personal life with professional.  Could she go back to those days now, she hadn't worked in two years and that troubled her, mind more than anything else.  These days it was easy to get entry level jobs than retain the existing high posts, she looked again at the young stewardess and wondered as she walked over to her.

"Maam, what will it be."
"Something to eat," she had already decided on muffins and ordered it.
As she waited for the muffins to come to her she browsed the menu for something to drink, she spotted a young couple in the corner, she remembered Arun and herself from old days, and then thought to herself, what could be in store for her in the future.  Anjali had told her of theories of Einstein and one particular one was of immense interest to her, though the exact words were lost to her :

"At any given time there are an infinite number of hypotheses that could be the solution to a problem and there will always be one particular one that will lend itself as the most important one, just let it go at that," Einstein had said.
Though she didn't read much about Einstein, she did have a scientific mind and she understood that time was of essence, that moment when this flash of lightening came wham on to someones minds was important and since there were an infinite number of solutions, it would be very difficult to verify which solution was apt.

As she watched the couple in the corner, she realised that everything they were doing was intuitive, nobody had taught them to cuddle up in the corner in such a way that they weren't watched or visible and yet they continued doing what they were doing despite the stares they occassionally managed to solicit.  Did either one of them plan on what they were doing today, she thought not, as a matter of fact there was enough evidence to support that they had picked the solution that this cosmos offered to young lovers best suited to their style and presence

"Some frappe for me, the best you got," she said as the stewardess walked past her to serve the young couple.
She would finish the muffin with something cold, though it was getting colder she would kill the cold with the cold.  As the stewardess started to mix her frappe she saw that all her movements were instinctive, in a flash she had the frappe ready and served in front of Shweta.  Shweta felt like talking and began to converse with her mildly,
"Do you keep newspapers around here ?"
"Only some girlie magazines that I read."
"That is a sexist term isn't it, girlie."
"I haven't thought about it much, normally the evenings are so busy that there is hardly time to read, but in the mornings I browse through the magazine."
"Didn't they just bring out the latest mascara from Lakme."
"Yeah its called the Lakme Eyeconic Curling Mascara."
"It must be fun working around here what with new people to chat to," she seemed the gregarious kinds anyway, not the barbie variety that she found at most counters.

She could get a job at one of the coffee shops to keep herself busy or even try out her hand writing freelance articles, she was good with English and that would also keep herself busy.  It occurred to her that all these were hypotheses that had just occurred to her and in time with introspection she would get more solutions, the one that was best suited for her could only be found after she got on the jobs, she realised she might be shifting from one job to another in the near future till she settled into what could be called her dream job or the one closest to it.

On a hunch she decided to call up Anjali, they would still be in the train, probably close to Delhi.  Anjali picked up after the first ring, and after the hellos were over with, she excitedly told her about her new plan.  Anjali was thrilled with the thought and encouraged her to talk even more.  They spoke for over 1/2 hour during which Shweta poured her heart out about this new thought.
"Friends Are What Makes The World Go Around."

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Rhythm of Life - V

The ride from Ludhiana to Delhi is a pleasant one, the mustard fields now turn into wheat ones, though it is still green all around us, Anjali is talking and as usual I am listening, in the backdrop of the train window, the Sun is setting.  I have this thought about relationships, the golden book notwithstanding, all of them are amenable to scientific temper, it is usually easy to romanticise them and overlook the ordinary, there is a small part of me that still believes in love, the power of it is overpowering, to be in love is the most divine thing that I can dream of.  Things when get analysed lead to an overwhelming loss of love, the feeling or loss of it is extraordinarily damning and it may take the winds out of the sail of many people.  Arun had been through this process, his work had taken over his mind where he had forgotten about the well being of his other half, I on the other hand with enough spare time on my hand could still smell the beauty of the rose and the fragrance could still overwhelm me.  I understood here, that the scientific temper that I possessed or sought to possess was purely on an observatory note right now and it was wholly because I had found the path that my alter-ego had travelled.  I wasn't a part of the experiment that sought to classify information based on facts, at least not immediately, I was left to observe and bring the conclusion to a formal experiment.

"Cup of tea ?"
"I can have one," she said wondering at the beautiful sunset.
I mixed one spoon of sugar into her tea and handed it over to her, there was this air plane like behind the seat table that had a circular snap on, she opened it and placed her cup of tea on it.  "I am scared for them." she said quietly trembling.
I was scared too, but to show would amount to betraying my emotions and I was somewhat of a cold fish, kept to myself unless there was a close friend I could speak to and almost never betrayed my emotions. Emotions are values that we imbibe due to our upbringing, the people that we meet and our experiences shape them, to show emotions seem to be the most logical conclusion to an upheaval in life but there was another logic that I persevered with and that was to act on them only after their worth had been evaluated.

Take for instance, tears, what causes them ?
Shweta had cried because she felt lonely and left behind, people around her had been too busy to notice that she was going through a crisis, there were tears because she had no connect with the world that was once hers, she was feeling tired of her so called friends who never got time to call back to find out if she was alright and part of this she attributed to Arun's indifference.  Tears are a natural outcome of the pain caused by these factors, though it may be important to realise that pain is the outcome of some of these factors and the tears the conclusion.

Dissecting emotions may in part lead to a total freedom from the emotions themselves and as I had mentioned to Shweta before, her over analysis of love had caused the love to go away, it obviously doesn't take well to being analysed.

Anjali seemed happy now, that she was on her way back home, the train was picking up speed, clocking nearly 80kmph, the driver probably had got the green signal and had put the auto switch till he needed to reel in the brakes for the next signal.  This trip had all but gone very well and we had managed to solve a dire crisis.
"This train is pretty well maintained, isn't it ?"
"Sure is."
"I believe they have turned this from a 15 coach to a 20 coach train."
"When did that happen ?"
"It was in the newspapers, the load on this train is pretty heavy."
"I didn't hear about it."
"The government has a policy of adding more coaches rather than starting new trains, it helps resolve the burden of running new ones on the same track."
"Didn't Chief Minister Amrinder Singh have new policy on reservation on trains ?"
"Successive governments have had that but the policies are policies on paper."

The conversation had begun in all earnest everywhere in the coach and we were happy to be talking all the way back home, reaching around 11:30pm and then home around 12:30am, all and all a happy ending to some eventful three days.
"The Soul Craves For Freedom of Thought."

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Rhythm of Life - IV

Relationships are like paper on which the golden rules are written, and I had mentioned that earlier to Shweta, it wasn't as if Arun had stopped loving her, but I thought she had evolved and he had stayed the same.  What this meant is that Shweta had rewritten her Golden Rule book while had been tending to her baby, but as it transpired Arun had remained the same, expecting her to provide emotional support and all that he thought women were supposed to do once they got married.  Shweta hated the idea of the baby, though she loved her daughter, she wasn't sure she had done the right thing by getting pregnant, she had compromised on what she wanted in life and got nothing for it.  She was just that, a very self aware soul who saw life better than most individuals around her and had learnt that there was nothing in this world that was sacred to her now.

As we waited at the Ludhiana railway station, Shweta had driven us packed with food for the trip back to Delhi.  The Sun was finally out, though the morning had looked bleak, it had turned around in the mid afternoon and now it was fabulously sunny.  The platform was busy with vendors selling their stuff, kids running around and some of them wailing, we had our two suitcases waiting at the platform waiting for the C-2 coach to arrive at the platform.
"Doesn't it look clean for a change ?"
"It does," said Anjali looking around the platform.  Normally the train platform is a very dirty place and Ludhiana though a model city in India was no exception.
"Do you think they did it for us ?"
"Ha ha ha, yeah we should do this trip more often," Anjali burst out.
"Remember the last time we were in Lucknow, they offered us flowers before we entered the train."
"Yeah," Anjali looked at me and wondered.

There are times in life when we are so emotionally challenged in our life that we see the world through the rose tinged glasses and see wonder even when nothing is working out.  Shweta was still listening so I explained, "When I first met her," I said pointing to Anjali, "I think I must have been an emotional fool, I did things that didn't explain what the thought was in my head."
"Give me a for instance," said Shweta interestedly.
"He still is an emotional one," Anjali said with a wicked smile on her face.
"I'd agree to anything she says."
"You both have seen a lot together haven't you," she was more and more interested.

As a matter of fact, the relief that had mirrored Arun's face in their living room when I had told them that we were probably best friends, reflected again on Shweta's face.  The morning cold dispelled with the first hint of Sun, Shweta's mind was free and soaring.  Anjali poked me and pointed to the magazine stand, "lets get some magazines."

I walked away from the two of them and started to browse at the magazine stand, there was "Femina", "Cine Star" and all the magazines that gossipped about the life of film stars, I wasn't particularly fond of the movies but Anjali was, so I picked up a few of the best ones.  Then in the backdrop I spotted an article headline in the "Times of India," it was a Sunday and the headline stared at me,

"Whats cooking Doc"

That would be interesting, so I paid extra for the newspaper, I loved cooking and I thought of what would be the agenda on the journey back, we would talk cooking, I often did this, discuss cooking with Anjali, it sparked a revival in my head.  As I walked back to the two of them, they stood discussing something pretty serious and by the looks of it, Anjali was finally talking the way she normally did, straight and direct, I was sure she would get herself understood, so I decided to give them more time and walked to the tea vendor.  I could see some hot brew, and asked him for a cup.  He gave me one and I didn't like it too much, the way I liked it was with lots of water, a dash of milk, half a spoon of sugar and brewed to perfection when the flavour would sting your nostrils.  I turned around to see  Anjali waving to me, the train was just beginning to arrive at the platform, I quickly paid the vendor and walked over to them.  It was time to say Goodbyes and how I hated them
If love is Stupid and then I should forever be in love.

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Rhythm of Life - III

The morning tea over and Shweta in a happy mood, Anjali decided she needed to plan the day, three days in a 19th century old city was getting her travel feet a tingle.  We decided we needed to keep Shweta as happy as possible, it wasn't a question of her having a tete-a-tete with my alter ego, it was important for her to understand that she had a heavenly purpose to her being here.  Anjali had spoken to her while I had a bath, and she told me about the conversation, it was a little bit of girly talk and a lot of it had to do with her disenchantment at home, she had worked all her life and now for the past two years tending to her baby daughter and her irascible husband was taking its toll.  When I walked into the living room, Arun was already there talking to Shweta and the toddler was playing on the carpeted floor, Shweta was moving her hands animated while she spoke, and I listened to her, she spoke of how there lives had changed ever since Arun had started making tonnes of money, they travelled less, spoke hardly a few words in a day and never ate together.  It wasn't really a complain, more of a matter of fact statement of facts and I appreciated that of her.

"Accusations are best discussed in courtrooms, personal relations are more about building trust and understanding facts and stating them, leaving the doubts, personal animosity and irritation behind.  My alter ego was one with a large ego and pride, two things that always colluded to spoil almost every interaction."
"You speak well," Shweta pointed out, looking at Arun almost being reminded of him when I spoke.  I could sense recognition in her, like she had reached a deja vu.
The three of us continued talking, Anjali was quiet which was unusual, but then she was more engrossed playing with the small fire in the fireplace.  She had her back turned back on us and was busy kindling the fire with the iron poker and it had started to roar, it was mid morning and still cold, the weather forecast had predicted that there would be Sun later in the day.

"Anjali is a friend or more?" Shweta asked feeling a bit awkward.
I understood their hesitancy in approaching the topic, realising that we were here for them more than they for us.
"She is the best friend I have got, we have helped each other out when there was nobody else out for us."

They sighed in relief, happy that I had told them about it, I knew now things would change from here on and they would understand why both of us truly wanted to help them.

Meanwhile Anjali came back from her reverie, "I am hungry again."
"Good to see you have this appetite."
"It must be the water around these parts."
"There is a theory around this, I do believe."
"Can I have more of that cake you are eating," she said and I passed her the cake along with a glass of juice.

The house was extremely quiet, just the sound of the fire crackling, they had built it well, outside I could hear the sound of an air plane as it got ready to land at the Sahnewal Airport.  The weather had conspired with the conversation to make the air oppressive but that prodded me into talking a bit more about.
"There is nothing lackadaisical about a torn relationship, it just means that one of the person or both of the people involved have started to reach out for a solution."

Relations are like paper with some golden rules written on them, once burned you can't retrieve them unless you have memorised the rules and can reproduce them as is.  Like everything, they evolve, the important thing to remember is that evolution of relations can't be brutally forced, they have to be nurtured to a higher level.  Broken down relations resemble carbon that is the form that paper takes once it is burnt, long absence from each others life is akin to forgotten golden rules, and these vows must be renewed before there is rhyme and poetry in our lives again.

"I need to go out and breath some fresh air." Anjali said and so all us decided to stroll out.
Arun got the car keys and a relieved Shweta got the picnic hamper from the kitchen.  Once in the car we decided a slow drive to the Nehru Rose Garden would be the ideal thing to do, it was a family place where the picnic hamper would not be out of place Shweta assured us.  Arun took the wheels and I was busy in the front seat looking out, the city can get polluted in the summers but the winter air was fresh, I saw a lot of hawkers and the traffic was medium to heavy.  Arun had taken the longer route and decided to drive through Bal Singh Nagar and then close to the Dal Bazaar taking a detour to Sahibjada Ajit Singh Nagar through to Model Town before reaching Civil Lines.  He had driven in a kind of circle, actually three quarters of a circle as he explained to all of us.  A signboard told me that we weren't far from the Punjab Agriculture University, and right now I could see cycle rickshaws moving with modern cars.

Arun was a methodical man, I could almost see the semi circle that he had mentally drawn so that we could breath in the air of Ludhiana and get a first sighter of what the city was like, it was like had moved the car from the old to the new townships before we landed at the rose garden, he was extremely sensitive to what we were seeing, and when he saw me staring at a Gurdwara in the distance, "Thats Nanaksar Gurudwara, and is one of the landmarks on the Ludhiana-Moga-Ferozepur Road."
When we reached the Nehru Rose Garden, it was crowded and the Sun was just beginning to peek through, it was about 3pm.  I was happy to be in Ludhiana.
Romance in Life brings Creativity to Life.

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The Rhythm of Life - II

It was a cloudy morning in Ludhiana when we woke up, it looked like it would drizzle and yet it just stayed the way it was, gloomy and dark.  Anjali quickly walked down to the kitchen and we were on the first floor bedrooms, Anjali had taken the one with the attached bath and I the largish one with a TV "damn I loved this house," it was built out of rock and had Shweta had insisted on it having 5 bedrooms with largish balconies on either side.  Arun had complied and built her a mini mansion, both balconies overlooked a garden and when Anjali came back with two cups of tea, we sat on the cane chairs and chatted, Shweta had taken a liking to Anjali, "and vice-versa I was sure by the look on Anjali's face," and now I was sure that we would resolve what we had come here for.  Tea was good, it was one of those Assamese Classics that held the flavour of things to be and yet when it rolled on the tongue I felt heavenly.  Downstairs the garden was being tended by the gardener, the chauffeur had arrived and Shweta was talking on the mobile while walking in the garden.

Shweta was from a middle class family and well educated from one of the premier institutes in India, she was short and petite, "that was the word that came to my mind," filled with energy, verve and lot of fun filled thoughts.  When I had met her for the first time, she had been working for a large American Financial Conglomerate in New Delhi as a financial consultant.  Sharp brained and quick witted, she was as direct and forthright as they come, honest in her opinions and true to her friends.  I did mention to her in my first meeting with her that her personality resembled Jessica Lange, "damn, not that I knew Jessica Lange on a personal basis," but Shweta did not believe in a particular religion, she on the other hand was a disciplined individual believing in the atheist way of life, she had admitted last evening that she got confused occasionally where religion was concerned.  Her family today included a young daughter and her husband, to her family she was strong willed though her husband would insist on her being a scatter brain, I believed even after 10 years Arun did not know her.

"Isn't she pretty ?" I asked Anjali as Shweta walked on to our balcony and took a chair.
She blushed and sighed nonchalantly, "The gardener tells me that the roses wouldn't last a hard rain, so I was kind of evolving a scheme to get them covered.  It looks like it will rain pretty heavy."
"Yeah the clouds are moving in from Kashmir and they are moving in slowly which by the looks of it is a lot of rain. If they move in fast then they go out fast too."
Anjali looked up and the eagles were moving down as if to indicate that it was pretty heavy up there. Shweta was twiddling on her mobile nervously looking at me as if she was about to tell us something.  Arun was still asleep, "He is a late riser," she said.
Shweta wanted to hear more from me and Anjali egged me on to speak about my life.  Now it was my turn to sigh and Shweta asked me more about her husband, " How was he when you met him ?"

My mind had undergone a tremendous upheaval of sorts, I was in turn the Devil and God himself, my friends would ask me insistently what had been a life changing event for me and I would say the day I landed up in a hospital not knowing why I was there.  I had been to a party and got drunk and the next day when I got up I was in a hospital, not knowing why or who had got me here.  I was under treatment and observation, the doctors and nurses treated me like a friend not knowing who I was.  When they asked me my name, I recalled it correctly but I didn't know anything more than that.  The Devil inside was gone but I still had a vague sense of its presence, for instance this visit to Ludhiana, I could sense that this alter ego had also been there a long time back, it had left its traces, the thoughts and its presence left me pondering.

My alter ego was a go getter and at all costs a winner, but in the process of winning he would get hurt, burying the hurt behind a mask and moving on to the next project.  Prolonged periods of suppressed anguish would cut him up into half in a periodic recurring cycles, it was no surprise that he had no friends, maybe because it was because of his intelligence or maybe his intelligence was due to the "no friends" phenomenon.  Asked about Shweta's predicament he would come out with a well thought strategy which no doubt would give Shweta the peace of mind that she wanted and the freedom of choice but in the long run her mind would go asunder with doubts.

"Arun was never a heavy drinker, though those days on a Christmas or New Year party he was prone to party heavily.  Fact is, it does get very cold during that part of the season and with the festivities in the air it was easy to lose yourself in alcohol.  He would be depressed about the most mundane of things and prone to be aggressive and even lose his cool.  He disguised his anguish well around a well strung out laughter which still rings in my ears from those days."
"I am prone to believe that there isn't anything in this world that cannot change and he must have too over the years hurting you, Shweta, in the process."

We had finished our cups of teas and all in sombre mood walked to the dining room for a quick breakfast.  Shweta was already looking sprightly and happy, it was a pleasure to know that our appearance at her home could alter the mood of the household so drastically.
Its The Worldly Game, the Good and the Bad.

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