Idyllic Thoughts

Yesterday my bus home was stopped to allow a peaceful candlelight procession against Delhi's gangrape pass; and sitting silently inside a well-lit bus, watching those young men and women (may be they were just girls and boys a week ago, but now they have grown up) walk with determination holding placards and candles, I was filled with pride. Pride for being in a nation where there is still hope. Pride that our youth have come on to streets for something worthwhile, for a girl they have never seen, never heard of till now, never even know her name, and who lives far far away in a city most of them have never visited. Pride that till now I had watched youth coming onto streets for freedom or any other just cause in other countries, watched with envy that it may not happen in our country riddled with corruption, but it did. And I feel contented. I feel it will change the course of our nation, soon. I thought people would talk for some days, argue on TV channels over the need for a &#

"The world breaks us all and afterward, some are stronger at the broken places," said Ernest Hemingway. I read this somewhere yesterday and was very impressed. How true! I thought. But then I googled the line and got the rest of the sentence, which was not just true, but very funny; one may say 'philosophically funny.'-- "...But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry." So what's the hurry to get broken and killed? We may as well enjoy this life well before the world kills us leisurely. Don't you think so?

That Chinese curse 'You may find what you are looking for' is coming true again and again for me. I was unaware of the fact that I always get what I am looking for, with strings attached! Getting what I want badly, comes with a side effect. I guess this is just a way of universe balancing itself with some tears along with the smile. Do I want the smile at the cost of tears? Or do I have to forfeit the smile itself for the sake of a few tear drops? Does the universe really conspire to get you what you wholeheartedly want? Or is it just pure nonsense?

Sunday mornings are a time to sleep, get lazy and relax for most people. But for me, it is a time to enjoy the tranquility of empty boulevards, empty buses... there is a sort of peace in getting up early and travelling when most are cooped up in their cozy homes, watching TV and drinking morning coffee.  Today morning I saw a young woman from the window of my bus, who looked mentally imbalanced, walking on the footpath. She suddenly jumped onto the road and started rolling beneath the footpath, laughing to herself. I wondered what went through her mind which prompted her to do that. Next I saw a group of footpath dwellers, mostly labourers, who live near the City Railway Station, squatting on the road side. A little away from them, a beautiful baby was placed on a mat. It was covered in blanket. It was turned over, playing to itself oblivious to the world. I wonder what she will become when she grows up. I wonder what ordeals she will have to face when she stops playing and star

The future is where we will live tomorrow. Whether you will live in it all alone, or with someone new walking in after every act, only to leave a short while later, still a stranger, or with someone who will hold your hand and walk with you till you both drop off the horizon would depend on you asking the right questions as you explore a new relationship. Reading the above lines in an article in Sunday Indian, I feel not all the times can the right questions sustain a relationship; sometimes you don't even need to. All pieces of puzzle fit perfectly some time though we don't know when and remain impatient and restless till the time comes.

ಹುಲ್ಲಾಗು ಬೆಟ್ಟದಡಿ ಮನೆಗೆ ಮಲ್ಲಿಗೆಯಾಗು ಕಲ್ಲಾಗು ಕಷ್ಟಗಳ ಮಳೆಯ ವಿಧಿ ಸುರಿಯೆ ಬೆಲ್ಲ ಸಕ್ಕರೆಯಾಗು ದೀನದುರ್ಬಲರಿಂಗೆ ಎಲ್ಲರೊಳಗೊಂದಾಗು – ಮಂಕುತಿಮ್ಮ I don't know why I remembered Kagga again. This morning I felt like reading all the kaggas and ruminate on them. How consoling they are! Just by reading those lines, I feel like I get answers to all my questions. Just felt like sharing this pearl from Mankuthimmana Kagga. Reading Kagga is like taking a headlong plunge into the memory pond to a time when I vociferously read those lines to soothe my mind. Even the plunge does not cause a ripple in the waters of mind, instead it calms the mind. 

Living a life is like walking on a tight rope above Niagara Falls. If you slip, you may survive the fall into Niagara, but there are no survivors in life. Everyone eventually slips and falls into the oblivion of death.

A harried experience: Love for language or...? @ http://penfolio.blogspot.com

Courtesy: Wikipedia My heart was dancing yesterday as I woke up and came out. It was such a blissful weather with cold breeze which threatened to lift me up and carry to my beloved, that I wished to just stand there and feel it forever. Walking on the beautiful, yet mud-spattered road, I wished that it led to a serene valley where there was no stress, rat race, worries, emotions that leave you drained and hunger. What would I do in such a place? I don't know, may be lie back on the ground among the flowers and gaze at the sky till it darkens, and lights up again, darkens, and lights up...

Once upon a time when I was a kid, I lived in perpetual fear that my handwriting would be ridiculed by my teacher. As I wrote in very small letters, mom always used to tell me to write in larger size and even teachers told me to write bigger in exams. I would spend the exam time anguishing over how many additional sheets of paper my classmates would take to write answers, whereas mine wouldn't even fill the book or sheet given at first. Though I got marks on par and sometimes more than others, I always envied their ability to write in larger size and use up many additional sheets enough to make a book. My handwriting too would be beautiful at sometimes and crooked at others, depending on my varying moods and interest. Today morning I saw a college girl standing in the bus and reading her notes, perhaps for exam. Her handwriting was very beautiful and I remembered the pressure our generation used to face from our parents, teachers to write beautifully. All that apart, in this age

After living all my life in Bharat, the one advice I would like to give to laymen and myself is this -- please do not  become great; great philosopher, poet, writer, artist, thinker, ... Once you become great, people vie hard with each other and everybody else to make you a god, someone who cannot be touched. You will be pushed down into the murky waters of the very beliefs you discarded, you will be idolised and worshipped even when you are an atheist or someone who always spoke against idolatry. The philosophies you propound will be dismissed by your followers. A great person will be reduced to a mere god who has to be just worshipped with incense and not followed. His ideals laugh at him sardonically, as if saying, "See what happened. You preached against something and they are pushing you down that very chute which you discarded as worthless. See, you have become a god but why, the reason is long forgotten." I hope those reading this will recognise many such personalit

A long time ago, once when I was walking home from college with my friend, I asked what she would like to do after PUC. She said with a dreamy sigh, "I wish to be a doctor." Our dialogue went on thus: I: Why? She: I want to go to America. I: Why? She: To earn lots of money. I: Then? She: I would enjoy life, marry. I: Then? She: I would have kids. I: Then? She: After becoming very rich, marrying, having kids, I will become old. I: Then? (She got angry) She: Then what? I will die. I asked her: If after all the things that you do, you are finally going to be old and die, why do you need to got to America? You can die here in India too. She had no answer. What is the purpose of life? I don't know. But I do know what it is not.   

The law locks up the hapless felon Who steals the goose from off the common, But lets the greater felon loose Who steals the common from the goose. --Anonymous, England, 1821 Just felt like sharing. I remember this when I see everyday that thieves, pick-pockets, small-time burglars are locked up while the greater felons travel in considerable security surrounded by well-wishers to temples, mutts, resorts and abroad. Recognise anyone? Oh! there is a multitude of them around us! We watch through hapless eyes when thieves are warned of being shot-at-sight and rapists, murderers, terrorists, scamsters are let go with crocodile tears in their eyes and fake heart conditions.

While reading our Editor's article on Girish Karnad and UR Ananthamurthy, I remembered reading URA's Samskara a long time ago. I was at an impressionable age and was awed by all the books I read. Even then, Samskara failed to impress me; in fact, it was like swallowing a mouthful of bad smell suddenly. I regretted reading it after managing to finish it somehow, because I never left even a bad book unfinished. This is my personal opinion and it was not because of caste reasons. I do not know the criteria for Jnanpith , but his other works may have been the reason for the award.

Here is a line on love by Joesph Conrad in his short story Amy Foster : "...you need imagination to form a notion of beauty at all, and still more to discover your ideal in an unfamiliar shape." This may the very truth about the emergence of love. Somewhere along the wavy line called life, we meet someone and fall in love. I don't believe in love at first sight. It is an emotion which comes of being with a person for some time, seeing our notion of ideality in that person and imagining him/her to be beautiful beyond description. One can be utterly happy and in love with the ugliest person -- I say this because I see many happy couples who do not have an iota of physical beauty in them, yet are in so much of love with each other that it often makes me wonder at how love and mental closeness disguise the physical ugliness. Once you become closer to someone, their colour, features are invisible to you. Though, at first you need imagination to see beauty in a person as Conra

Relationships are very hard to maintain, especially if those involved in the relationships are insecure. Marriage is quite complicated as it is embracing a whole new family, with their interests, ways that differ from ours, likings and not-so-likings, stories and light moments, fears and emotions. Someone recently told me that being unmarried makes us retain our individuality. Maybe so. For someone who has been independent in thinking and has their own beliefs, it would be quite difficult to stay in a marriage happily, where one has to constantly consider the likes and dislikes of the spouse. Is love, family, worth sacrificing one's individuality for?

Last week I spent an evening with my hubby on the serene Maravanthe beach near Kundapura watching the aeonian waves splash on the sand and drag away some reluctant sand away. Watching the waves compete with each other, I felt that they were trying, just like humans, to surpass their predecessors on their path to success. Aren't we too engrossed in continually outdoing others in our professional or personal life? This is what compels us to achieve. If there was no competition, there would be idle people all around, with zero achievements and a complete lack of enthusiasm to work and live. And in this regard, I think jealousy can be a positive emotion.

Once upon a time, I felt love was overrated. I thought love was the most overhyped feeling ever. But now I realise that love is like a mixture of a heady potion in which drugs, hypnosis, addiction, vulnerability, dreams, attraction are mixed potently forgetting to add logic, reasoning as seasoning. When somebody loves you, it brings such a happiness that is beyond description. It is like floating up in heavens carefree and looking down upon mere mortals who are unaware of the joys of love. It is also like a personal little fairydom of dreams where no one else has the permission to enter.

From many days, a question is bothering me. I haven't found a satisfactory answer yet. So I'll write it down here. Maybe anybody who reads this may think of an answer. "Just because we are journalists, writers, opinion creators and thinkers, do we have the right to judge others? Either personally or professionally? If not, then how can we write without judging? Our writings obviously focus on judging others." 

See what happens when the ego of one person surpasses the common good of the mass. A lawyer, stopped by the Police for riding with two pillion riders on bike, created ruckus and the incident was reported in the media. This has finally led to attack on scribes. I consider our country a near-banana republic where people live and behave in a manner that is quite not suited for democracy -- they believe what they comes out of their mouth is gospel truth and behave accordingly. Don't you think instead of more laws with each such incidents, we need stricter enforcement of existing laws? But who is going to implement it when the fence tries to devour the crop? 

Modernity has brought along its own interpretation to India. Here, the word means skimpy dresses, vulgar dances, table etiquette, maintaining skin-deep beauty and obscene behaviour, as far as I could see. Our thinking has not become modern, with the ousting of superstitions and embracing a scientific temperament. No, modernity has failed in inducing a modern way, a new way of thinking in us, or in the way we perceive things, events. We have not become thinkers, we have just become followers of a culture alien to us and one which doesn't suit us. I had to write this prelude because I witnessed two contrasting events in the last two days. One was a cultural programme being conducted in front of a house in Mysore, I don't know for what reason. Two very young children were gyrating sexily to the tunes of some song which was unbearable with no apparent meaning. Their parents and other elders were enjoying the dance with a smile on their faces. Their dance was unbelievable as it wa

Sitting in the bus which was suffocating me with people's myriad smells and presence, I heard a neta speaking at a roadside shamiana at some function in city today evening. He was saying that if Swami Vivekananda was alive today, he would have been horrified or something to that effect. In a matter of seconds that I heard those words, I felt they sound so hollow, that they clang, clang, clang against themselves. Who cares what are these netas' opinions? Because they surely wouldn't be theirs. Here is one Minister who speaks of HIV in theatre festival, with a complete absence of mind and sense that people would inwardly snigger at him. There is one more MP who tirades against his own party members and agenda, holding a press meet every other day just to keep himself floating in the midst of the political vortex. He doesn't undersand that it is they, the elected representatives, whose job it is to correct the administration and carry out people-friendly works. They don&#

Once upon a time I used read a lot. I still read, but not about 600 pages in a day as I used to earlier. Then, many of my friends tried to emulate me by trying to read books. Some bought the book  whose outer cover they fancied, kept the book in a shelf for months to gather dust and then in one fine moment of guilt, started reading. None of them went beyond the first chapter. They came to me for help. But how could I help except suggesting to read the topics that interest them?  Now I realise that reading is an acquired taste. And there is one more in that list -- education. Yesterday when I was standing in the bus stop engrossed in an Isaac Asimov short story, a lady near me was pouring out her woes to another lady, that her son dropped out of college in degree first year saying that he had no desire to study and was bored. She said his peers who finished studies got some or the other job but he stayed without any. She sighed saying that she wished he would complete at least a degre

I won't be using Facebook from now on. One of the reasons for the decision is my dwindling time spent on reading and writing. I don't like becoming a Facebook addict with no productivity. My reading and writing have lessened and I am dissatisfied with that. After deciding to re-enter the enchanting world of books fully after brief stepping-ins, I want to continue my journey without disturbances. And I would like to write more. I decided if my writing has any value, I don't need o update them on FB. Let me see how this liberation feels.

'Caught in a strange land in a net with other butterflies, I'm a caterpillar yet undecided to remain a caterpillar and perish or turn into a beautiful butterfly and live a life full of joy.' Readers don't laugh. But I came up with this one night recently when I was travelling in a train. I tossed and turned, not being able to sleep, upset over unexplainable things and frustrated over events not in my control. Then it occurred to me that our life and its usefulness depends on our decisions -- whether to remain a crawling caterpillar whose existence otherwise is either ignored by all and sundry or who is cursed for just being there and thrown out with a stick, or to develop wings of life and metamorphose into a beautiful butterfly whom everybody adores for its beauty and colour, for its flitting liveliness, for its service to the flower's pollination... I thought that I should be a butterfly, of service to others, but then again I thought, anyway, who really cares?