I must write because I love to write.

I forget the name of the guy….sorry, I must more precisely say, I never remembered the name of the guy in the first place…but there was this guy who was an author kind of person who had written many newspaper columns and perhaps a book or two also…..this guy was on TV and he was saying “one of the first things I learned as a newspaper columnist was that I should not think about who I am writing this article for. I should not think about the reactions of those who are going to read this. Only then can I write. So I just wrote whatever I felt like writing, without worrying about whether it will be appreciated or put down”. That’s probably the best advice I have ever received. And maybe the reason I feel myself capable of taking it is because it was not intended for me personally.

My friends often ask me why do I not get down to writing a book.

I offer my entire range of theatrical shrugs and poignant sighs by way of explanations. Work, frustration with work, life, frustration with life.
But I know the real reason.
And its something which ashames me as I admit it – even to myself. Such a damn delusionist I am.

Till the time I don’t write anything significant, and just keep shooting off a glib mail, a sarcastic reply, a biting review here and there I keep convincing myself that Oh Yeah, I have this talent as a writer. But what if I write something more substantial, say like a book, and it falls flat?

Then, I would convince myself and everyone else that I never had any gift of substance.

And that would be it. That would be the end of this feeling that I have of being a good author, of being able to write stuff that interests people. And that’s why I don’t try writing a book. That’s why.


Well, if no book, then no book.

Writing, out-pouring of thoughts and ramblings.
That’s something I can do and I will do.

I do not consider myself a person of any deep or incisive thoughts – about life or anything else.
But there are times when I feel like I have understood something, like some fact that everyone else, or most people have already been aware of for quite some time, which I have realized just now. This feeling is quite something I tell you.

The way I see life, myself, the world around in those moments, I wish I could see the same way throughout life. At all moments, in all occasions.

I just finished reading Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.
(Considering the heavy analysis of psychological theories and alternate viewpoints in the second half of the book, it might even be called as “Man’s Search for Meaning…of This Book”)
Pretty interesting book.
And more than that.
If one reads this book and finds it no more than interesting or touching then it’s as wasted as a conversation with a pretty woman without appreciating how intelligent she is.

One of the interesting things I found in the book is the importance he attaches to the past. The past is real. The future is all potential.
What has been achieved and done has been secured in the past.
What is there in the future and undone is a mere potentiality.
Hence, to live life one must try and put as many things as possible in the past.
The potentialities must be converted and secured as permanent indelible pages in the book of Past.

Each moment spent in regretting is a moment stamped and sealed as “Moment of Regret” and that’s it – it has been lived, it has become real and it has become saved unalterably as a “Moment of Regret”.

I was walking back from the Churney road HDFC ATM, rolling these marbles of thoughts in the palm of my head - ‘look, I have got these 5 minutes while I walk and whether I like it or not these 5 minutes will definitely become history 5 minutes hence. Irretrievably cast into a statue of sand. Nothing bad is going to happen to me in the next 5 minutes. Despite all the transitoriness of life and treachery of fate I can still say to myself very re-assuredly that nothing bad is going to happen to me in the next 5 minutes. Now whether these 5 minutes freeze into wax statues of drooping, wizened listlessness or rising little angels of joy was upto me. Is that a decision that I can make? Oh yes. In the face of all the fatalism and determinism of the world, that is still something I can decide. '

And I just decided to fill the next 5 minutes with feeling good. Just feeling good. No regrets, no worries, no expectations, no evaluations. And I tell you, it felt so beautiful. So calming. Maybe that’s what Bliss feels like. Such peace.

Now, as I write again, I am looking for that 5 minute walk here.

Those awful Sunday Mornings

(I know awful is normally for monday mornings, but some sundays can also go bad)

you know, some sunday mornings, you wake up and just lie in bed....and are not feeling good about it..... life and career seem to have reached a zen stage where they intend to just sit at one place in ostensible meditation, but which is actually more like energyless slumber... ...

"excitement" sounds like one of those words that taint old pictures of childhood and irrationally hopeful days of youth...

... yeah...i am talking about one of those bad sunday mornings when u wake up, staring long into the distance watching Life become a smaller and smaller dot on the autobahn of Time as it walks away from you.....

And there is just one cure in the entire South Indian world for such Sunday mornings.....a good, strong cuppa of filter kaapi.....

Why this urge to create?

Why this urge to write?

Maybe, when we create something, a little of one's being is crystallized into something more tangible than a presence inside.

It is the only way one can hold oneself in the cup of one's own palm....and appreciate the beauty and wonder that God has put inside us.

When we create, we feel the creation of God that we are.

In New Delhi, a few kilometers away from the Parliament House, two roads cross each other at right angles – Shanti Marg and Satya Marg.
I wonder if that’s always true in life.
The road to truth has to cut away from the road to peace?

What an irony – Hinduism’s colour is orange, just a shade away from the red of blood.
This for perhaps the only major religion in the world to advise non-violence towards all living beings.
And Islam’s colour is green, a peaceful, content, agrarian green - for a religion that has had to fight every step of its way to definition and determination.

(P.S. - this is not to imply that Islam is a militant religion or anything. Remember that a lot of Indians embraced Islam because they found it to be more humanitarian than the caste-ridden shackles of Hinduism)

Disappointment is always measured in cms of expectation.

A lot of people when they say “I love you” actually want to say “I want you to love me”.

Sometimes I feel Life is a big Hoax.

They make you run around, as if caught in a big moment, where every decision you make could mean the difference between life and death. At the end of it, you realize it was all for nothing.
There was no bomb.

It was just somebody’s idea of fun.
God’s?

Why did you marry him?
Oh, for his wealth.

Why did you marry her?
The first time I saw her, I was like, this is the woman of my dreams. I was completely lost in the blue of her eyes. I saw the turgid pale pink of her lips and felt a parched thirst I have never known before.

She was beautiful man, amazingly, breathtakingly beautiful.

------------------------------------------------


Is marrying for looks any better than marrying for money?

If I fall in love with a women because she looks so lovely, or angel-like, or amazingly cute, would I be any better than a woman who falls in love with a man because he is oh-so-rich?

Actually, that woman would be better than me. Because she has fallen for something which speaks something about the man’s will, desire, his character and his ability to achieve,

whilst I desire her for something for which she is not even responsible.