Sunday morning thoughts..the Physics of the Quest

When I woke up today, I just had two desires : coffee and blogging. The first was easy to satisfy. But the latter..not so much. Its been ages since I wrote last. I have been denying myself the sheer pleasure of writing. It was like being on a writing-abstinence, an act of blasphemy in my blog shrine. Anyway, my original desire to wake up early on a Sunday morning and have coffee while blogging is turning to be a disastrous affair. By end of the third line, I burnt my tongue with my piping hot fix. Not what I exactly had in mind for this morning, but still fairly happy nonetheless.

Speaking of this idea, I suppose I feel quite the same of where I'm at in life right now. Life is so funny that way. You just never know where you'll end up. The ancients used to call it “fatum” or destiny, as we know it. This reminds me of the book I read recently, Eat, pray, love (by Elizabeth Gilbert), and let me tell you blog dost, this is not a typical chick lit( even though the tagline boasts of, one woman’s search for everything). Its more of an example on how to deal transformations in life. There are many idiologies in this book that I neither accept nor can relate to, since the ingénue was a 30 something divorcee. But there was this one short monologue towards the end of the movie, based on this book:

"I've come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call 'The Physics of The Quest' -- a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: 'If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared - most of all - to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself... then truth will not be withheld from you.' Or so I've come to believe. I can't help but believe it, given my experience."

Don’t ask me why, but I was deeply moved by this line. Maybe because I feel like this is all I ever do. If you have been on such a journey for long time, it is really easy to feel like you're running in circles... that you're simply going nowhere, that you just run and run, chasing after whatever seems to be the right thing for you at the time. Being in this grey zone is not that bad. But do you know what is more annoying? People asking me almost incessantly, “What do you want to do next in life?” And then I realize I am in serious trouble here. I really don’t know where I see myself year from now, let alone life.

Going back to our protagonist of the book, she keeps repeating this catchy Italian phrase "Attravarsiamo", which means lets cross over. Something she did to follow what her heart wants. Easier said than done concept, because crossing over in reality often leads to transgression of many norms of the society. But when I do crossover, I hope to find it although manifested in different forms-to be happy and content in life.

The greatest story ever written: PART 3, What if..

Every once in a while you meet that person in your life, you wish you hadn't met. 'coz they enter your life like a breeze and leave like a raging storm. Sadly I met someone and realized it much later, how that one collateral damage left me emotionally mishapen.

So one fine morning I wake up, put a gun to my head and ask, "What if we never met? What if I never returned that smile? Would I be at a much happier place today?" They say a "butterfly effect" is next to a death wish. But if those wings actually flapped, I am not sure if any of the Fijian islands would be hit by tsunami, but my life would be short of one.

I met Jim on a Sunday morning. I saw him when I walked out of the church. His smile was like a Hawaiian sunrise, and made by heart do a Hula. Only there was a small problem. You see, Jim was dead. Blame it on that bright sunny Sunday, I didn't notice when he walked out of that cemetery...

I know you don't believe me, but this is my story.

I am Tom and I am a fucking retard.

Being 24

I turn 24 today..woohoo! Unlike my girlfriends, who has issues with the addition of a new candle in their cakes of life..I am not at all ashamed of growing older(although I prefer being a bit more wiser!). Maybe ‘coz I haven’t got my wrinkles yet? Well I can wait till 40 to crib about it. Anyways today I am going to celebrate my 23 years of existence. Not trying to dramatize the drama here, but the journey was really exciting. I mean I’ve learned a lot in these years. I could almost compare it to a sleazy Bollywood movie- there was drama, action, romance, tragedy! I couldn’t ask for more. I would really like to give a big hug and a kiss to that scriptwriter up there for making each moment of my full of surprises. One moment I m on top of the world, the next, I am on a free fall. There was never a moment or one particular situation that remained static for me. Keeps me at the edge of my seat, and so I end up eating more than I could chew. Call me greedy, but I have come in terms with myself of going to live every moment to the fullest. ‘coz there is this huge Billboard stuck in my head which reads, “ You never know whats gonna hit u next? Stay tuned for the next big shit, baby!”

Now this shit has been both good and bad. Remember, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger?? I have learnt, the hard way, that every kick below the belt may take your breathe away, but so does the “special” moments. Either way you just can’t stop breathing if they cease to exist. That’s what you get for 23 years of being me! And I am glad it gave me nothing, but a new-found independence. I, no longer, am part of the Declaration of Dependence that I signed 10 years ago. As a 14 year old kid, I carried around a huge baggage of doubts and fears. But the more I see, the more I learn to get rid of my emotional crippledom. And finally after all these years, I think I can part me of getting cured. Yes, old fears do lead to news one but I guess life has taught me to sober down. So my next free fall would be more like spreading my wings and say “aane de”.

Its amazing to see how much my life has changed past 10 years. Talk about being on a topsy-turvy ride. But then it wouldn’t have been possible without all the people who had been, are and going to be part of my life. Thank you all! Its worth mentioning that the thank-you even goes out to those who could no longer be a part of this celebration called my-life. I have no regret or remorse knowing you all, ‘coz if you didn’t leave me then, I wouldn’t be able to welcome the new wonderful people to enter my life now. And trust me, this is not the 12-step program I am going through, its just the downside of being happy! And I have learnt to fight for happiness. But my biggest Thank-you goes to one woman, who was actually responsible for making my 24 happen.. but more on her tomorrow. ;)

But whats its worth, birthday is one day when I can actually have the cake and eat it too. Plus all the 1001 FB notifications have taught me two things: People cares, and I am getting old coz I ran outta breath saying Thank you’s :P

P.S. I don’t feel a day older than 16 though!

The greatest story ever written: PART 2, MIRROR

I try not to stare at her, but those black eyes stare back at me.

what if she finds out??

hey you!

oh no, not now..

me?

yes you! what are you hiding?

umm, nothing.

what a lousy liar! you do realize you can't hide anything from me.

wasn't trying to..

so, whats eating u tonight?

well, i was only thinking..

oh, keep those crazy voices out of your head! they never did you any good

you telling me this?? you must be crazy..

..and you are stupid. Aren't you still regretting the last time you listened to them?

but..

but what? now u r stuck in your own golden cage

how dare you say that!! my husband won't like it..

hahaha..like he really cares.

yes he does.. he is only busy.

busy? stop lying to yourself.. all he cares about is his job, his jaugar and maybe his girlfriend..

enough! and leave me alone..

seriously, do you even love him?

none of your business..

sometimes i wonder, if you ever loved anyone of them?

yes i did, and still do..

waitamin.. you can't possibly love all four of them at the same time?

well, i have my reasons..

..and i have all the time in the world.

well.. if one showed me the truth, the second one taught me to love. The third one was fun to be with, and the fourth gave me stability.

yeah, the way i see it..the first one, asshole. the second, so full of shit. the third, boy toy. the fourth, credit card without limit.

stop it!... see, thats why i hate telling you stuff.

and yet you always come back to me...so, whom do you love the most?

oh, its difficult for me to pick one

why ? are you afraid of the answer?

maybe.. i cant face the truth..

but honey, the truth has been staring at you...the whole time!

The greatest story ever written: PART 1, DEATH

somewhere in an old dingy building in downtown. while the city stays awake, as a mind slowly goes into deep oblivion...

its working. i can feel it in my blood. it will be slow and excruciating. but somehow it makes me terribly happy. i m a bird in flight. and this is not a dream. but if i sleep tonight, this dream will be over. my dream, her dream.

oh, how i wish she was here to witness this moment. i must show it to her. she must know, her faith actually worked. like a firefly's prayer on a dark night.

yes. it is a dark night. can it be an omen or just a figment of my twisted imagination? haha..twists! always loved them..they have always invigorated my frozen thoughts.

thoughts. now i m waiting for that final thought looking at the ceiling as the old fan creeks above. voices. i hear voices. not in my mind, but my neighbors' as they fight over money.

fight. i believe i fought many silly battles. they molded and marred me, like the clay in a potter's wheel. but i am willing to lose my last battle. for there is no joy than losing for one thing you love.

love. never understood why so many complications hover over this four lettered word. when it is the first n simplest act a human knows.

act. everything real is nothing but a surreal act. Maya. an illusion that ends with death.

death. an end to everything. but for me, its the beginning of an end. for i shall rise from the shackles of life as my mission is over.

mission....

Emosanal Attyachar

Well the other day I had the great misfortune of watching the reality show “emosanal attyachar”. Since flipping through the TV channels has become my latest hobby, I guess there is no scope of complaining much either. Coming back to the show, this is a very cheap unworthy version of Steven Sodenberg’s “sex, lies and videotape”, minus the sex. If you suspect your partner is cheating on you, contact the TV crew and they will prove it. They will record the suspect’s infidelity in a videotape and show it to the devastated boyfriend/girlfriend. All this will be aired on TV, plus the mayhem that follows. The viewers being sadistic and bored in their own frustrating lives actually enjoy the public humiliation of the “cheater” and the agony of the “cheated”. “Achha hua, the bastard/bitch deserves it” is all they can say. Its sad because they are the same people who champion “love” and search for “love” their whole lives. But when the bubble of this over-rated “feeling” bursts, they simply condemn it. Hypocrites!..We all are.

So I decided to do a small pathology on “love”. This is something I observed in my “quest” to find out “where love went wrong”. I maybe wrong or absolutely right! Just try to see it my way before throwing the hate bombs at me.

Why do people fall in love? I think its mainly to kill their loneliness. Strike one! reason to fall in love. Nobody wants to be alone. Everybody wants somebody. And in the haste to fill their “empty cup”, they get into relationships. No wonder “cheating” becomes a second nature. After all, the very root of love is poisoned. You don’t love your woman, you are simply using her not to be lonely, and neither she loves you. You both suffer from the same disease of “loneliness” and reduce each other into things to escape this inner hell (Remember Britney singing “My loneliness is killing me..”. Well it really did kill her.) No doubt first few months you both will be on seventh heaven, but when the “commitment” monster comes along, the relationship will get ugly. Love never grows out of fear. Fear begets only more fear. Suddenly they can’t stand each other and eventually will start looking for greener, better pasture. Or lead a more frustrating life by getting married and covering their unhappiness with the façade of “love”.

What about “made for each other” concept? That’s Strike two! reason to fall in love. Nobody is made for anyone. This is only in our heads. For example, Jack carries the image of his mother as the model woman, and Jill thinks her dad as the model man. So Jack and Jill goes round the hill to fetch “the one”. Unfortunately, they took the imprints of their respective models in their minds. When Jack met Jill, his brain cried out loud “she is the one! She is the one!” even Jill’s brain shouts ”he is your soulmate”. So, the brains analyzed and then finalized that the blueprints match the model. This is not a lame hypothesis but a Freudian fact. You fall in love with your head. Don’t believe me? Read this . Now Jack and Jill “falls in love” and gets married. And then something went wrong. One fine morning, Jack wakes up to realize Jill no longer fits the ideal he carries in his head. Now the trouble is multiplied ‘coz even Jill feels “he is not the man”. No wonder, Jack and Jill came tumbling down with an ugly divorce and broken hearts. 90% of the marriages die because of this and the rest 10% live miserably with the hope that “someday they will change”. But in rare occasions few marriages are successful. Wanna know whose? The one between a sadist and a masochist. One loves to torture and the other loves to be tortured; together they make the happiest couple. Both are psychopaths and they love to live a life of torture. Otherwise every marriage will fail, if imprints were the reason why the couple came together in the first place.

So what is love? Love is belongingness. Strike three! reason to fall in love. Love is like a ladder - from sex to super consciousness. At the lowest rung, love is nothing but, power politics. It’s like sugar-coated politics that exists between husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. Poets, musicians, movies talk about great love but its all about a desire how to exploit the other. No wonder possessiveness and jealousy is an intrinsic part of love. Your over protectiveness is not that you love that person more, its simply your insecurity that you will lose that person. Nobody wants to lose their favorite thing. That’s why love is 99% of bitterness and only 1 % of sugar that you coat on top. We often come across the term “object of affection”. Humans, by nature, always need to posses that one thing they love. Ironically, these days people are falling more in love with their pets, their cars, clothes etc. After all, to be in love with human is utter hell. It’s a continuous conflict -nagging, always at each other’s throat. And when this kind of love turns into marriage, its definitely World War III. So please meditate over a few of Murphy’s sutras before you do the“I do”:

1. 1. Its good to be married occasionally.

2. 2. Marriage is a three-ringed circus: engagement ring, wedding ring and suffer-ring.

3. 3. Marriage may make the world go round, but so does a punch in the nose.

4. 4.Saving a marriage from divorce: do not show up at your wedding.

5. 5.A woman is God’s second mistake -man is the first, obviously- the two wrongs together don’t make a right.

6. 6.A woman is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of the “bakra”.(ok, I made that up but it still makes sense ;))

So go home today and take a good look at your partner(or their picture) and ask why you “love” him/her. Is it because you have a hidden/subconscious agenda? Or is it because you don’t really need a reason to be in love with them? And this is the Ugly truth, my friend. Don’t you think life is too short to live a Beautiful lie??

In my defense, I would say “only fools rush in”, fall in love and commit the same mistakes all over again. But you know why? ‘Coz those freaking moments of being in “love”, will be some of the best moments in your life-even if it happened at the very last moment of your life. So stay foolish, stay happy.

“NAKED SEARCH” AT HEATHROW…. Umm, not cool!

Flying to US via Heathrow? Welcome to the latest 3D- full body scanners! Talk about virtually being stripped at the price of air travel. The scanner apparently see through the clothes but has no effect if anything is hidden inside the body. What happened to the good ole X-ray machines?? Won’t it be hilarious, looking at a smiling skeleton air–kissing or waving at the camera? Could definitely spread some much- needed laugh. But I guess the security won’t be complaining much either with the new body scanners.

Yeah, I know I am ranting like a village rustic about downside of technology (upside for anyone?). Anyways, if I get much-delayed visa (I know, they did it again!), I will be flying the British Airways back to Philly. And that’s why the horror of the scanner! Its not like I am hiding something, but I am very uncomfortable climbing a conveyor belt and lying like luggage. It’slike living my own perpetual nightmare. If only that Nigerian shit head didn’t carry out the orders of that equally dumb organization. Which brings forth another uncomfortable procedure. Passengers with Muslim names such as Khan can be detained and questioned. Not only this will be humiliating for them, but also create an ill feeling between communities. This gets me to think why I was double-checked before boarding my flight back to India? Was it because I am brown or because I don’t have a Christian name? Funny, because the newspapers are currently buzzing with headlines having an American-Pakistani name, David Coleman Hadley. Now I am thinking hard, but laughing even harder.

I totally understand that people in the West are currently paranoid with the terrorist threats. But do you think it is justified that someone in the American embassy decides that I shouldn’t attend school on time? Of course, you can’t question the authority about this recurring nightmare. Just because they may have some “doubts” about my profile, not only will I miss an entire term of coursework, but also four months of research. I mean you go for your visa interview with all the required documents (Mind you, everything is legitimate), you won’t be asked any question, but simply given a green paper saying the visa is delayed due to “administrative processing”. You then answer a series of questions online and wait for 4-5 weeks, depending on the workload of the embassy.This is not a one-time thing, it happened twice! So my friends have come up with some of the stupidest and funniest theories behind my “delayed-visa” mystery.

Anyways, my biggest and only console is that I get to spend some with my family, but how long? The happiness changes to boredom after few weeks. No work and all play makes T-F-L a lousy writer(as you can see it!).