Every ‘MOM’ent begins with her!

Dear Mom,

Today seems like a good day to tell the world about you. Not just because there is a sense of celebration about the power of womanhood or about the limitless capabilities that women like you possess or even about the countless sacrifices that you all account for in providing for the lovely lives that we lead. It’s a good time mom because amid the cheer of your power, it seems most opportune for me to confess to you my fears, my powerlessness and the utter sense of insecurity that the realization of mortal laws brings to me.

My sense of dependency on you scares me mom because it forces me to blind myself to a future without you ever. Truth be told, you and I are both running the mortality race and I wonder which of us two winning it would I prefer: is the pain of living without you lesser painful than imagining leaving you back in this world without me? I don’t know mom and I don’t want to think about it at all because it makes me go weak in the knees.

It was two weeks ago Mom when aboard a flight from Hyderabad at night, a single fleeting moment brought me close yet again to the closeness I share with you. The air turbulence was slightly intense compared to other days and in one awkward moment, the plane seemed to cut through an airpocket. The subsequent thud that we felt surely must have increased God’s call log – each passenger’s frozen lips seemed to murmur a certain prayer of hope. For me, the first and last word in that gripping moment was ‘Mom’. I knew you couldn’t hear me at that time given you must’ve been engrossed preparing dinner for me several nautical miles away. But, I still uttered your name because that’s what I have done all my life and it hasn’t changed one bit … From calling out to you while being chased by a dog when I was 12 to summoning your presence while walking down a few metres away from cab drop point to home in the din of the night when I was 22 or seeing your photograph before critical results at school, high school and even B-school .. it’s not changed one bit mom and I guess it never will.

The burden of life seems to have robbed you of so much .. those wrinkles on your hands are contours that map me to my past .. each of those criss-crosses being a telltale of all that you have taken away from yourself and given me in the legacy of your selfless giving. You are my Atlas that never shrugged!

I often ask myself a futile question: can I reciprocate ever in equal volume? The answer is no, because you will never stop giving - being the mother that you are - and I will never stop taking given I cannot ever have enough of your benevolence – the credit-debit table is destined to be lopsided.

Dear Mom, I don’t know if you’re the best mother in the world – how can you rank Gods – it’s blasphemy to believe that my God betters someone else’s! But, what I do know is that you’re the best mother a son like me could ever crave for. And the world may never understand why I write what I write, but I know you will because like Sharon Doubiago, I too believe:

“My mother is a poem I'll never be able to write. though everything I write is a poem to my mother.”

Happy Momen’s Day!

Placement Hour: Time to obsess!

Remember the last time you obsessed about a dream – engineered it while asleep, lived it while awake – the last time you reached out to different Gods with one common prayer, the last time you geared up with the most single-minded focus for a day that would be as big for atleast 50 other people you have known and grown with in the last two years.

If you can’t remember any such day, brace up for your eureka moment! Your next two months will be nothing short of a sleepless sojourn. For some, the expectation of the big day will inflate their hearts with hope, for others, the same anticipation will freeze their thoughts with deep fear.

Some will be explicit, others implicit, but you will see it wherever you go. You may hear it over coffee conversations, see it in the half-filled plates on dinner tables or feel it under the breath of your best friend egging you on over a late night conversation. You may want to run away, hide from the spotlight – but make no mistake, there is no hiding this time around.

And, therefore, the sanest advice would be: Shape up and compete with dignity. It never was and will never be pleasant to be thrown into an every-man-for-himself cauldron with your best friends – those you have dined and wined with for the best part of your Bschool years.

So, read up on your laws, brush up your compensation formulae and lap up your OB concepts. And while you do this with the undistracted intent of a blinder-ridden racehorse, do not for once lose sight of your neighbor standing behind you – the goodfella who has entertained you over daaru nights and paid for your chai and tiger biscuits – the goodfella may now need your push, and a bit of pull, to make it to the finish line. Coming first is alright, but there’s more fun when you complete the race knowing that while you have pulled through to emerge victorious, you have done enough to pull others along rather than pull them down.

And, we all know that on that monumental day, a few will achieve what they set out for, a few others may fall slightly short of what they think they wanted to achieve. And disappointment will come for some who think they have fallen short, those who think they have failed. But, they will tide over it soon:  it’s a matter of time when they’ll realize that their bar of failure is far higher than the bar of success for the average 25-year-olds out there. 

So, dust up, get up, plug in that favourite song of yours that inspires you to outdo yourself, and obsess once again. I may not hazard a guess on what the end will be like, but can vouch that this journey will be surreal. And as I said last year after completing my surreal journey – the gap between achieving your dream and settling for a safe reality is a distance equal to one leap of faith. Soar on!

A Walk to Remember

The biggest side effect of a restless mind is one of blinded priorities. My current to-do checklist boasts of an avalanche of work staring at me in the face. And, therefore, by no means should I allow myself to indulge in a leisurely hour of random moorings. But, when there is a voice within keen to be heard and a thought inside seeking ventilation, you can’t help, but submit.

I often wonder if there’s a premium that we put on emotions? The answer, either ways, explains how much we open ourselves to two extreme possibilities: of either building a fortress and preserving our inner selves within its lonely walls or letting ourselves in the open and J-walking on social highways almost certain to be run over by hurt and pain, sooner or later.

I have always been a great advocate of the safer option – of staying within the foreclosures and keeping any possible infringements at bay. This is a choice that lays down clear terms and conditions: “I’d be happy to know who you are, but would request you to abstain from knowing who I am!

But, this philosophy does make room for exceptions; this frontier does open up to a few. And there is not one reason alone that explains this exception: these are individuals who inspire confidence that they’d heal you when you come back wounded from all the pretence of social conventions, they’d evoke a heartfelt laughter when you are tired of pasted smiles, and revitalise the life within you when all seems lost in your quest for emotional security.

You take a chance because these people open you to the beautiful possibilities that you never imagined before -- they are the encouraging pat on your back on a discouraging day, the warm hug on a cold day, the dope of belief when disbelief raises its ugly head.

Opening up to these exceptional few, however, does eventuate into a slight compromise on emotional safety – it may not be a J-walk on social highways, but it’s surely a stroll by the roadside, one that is safe, but not secured enough.

These people also do run you over sometimes either because they drove recklessly and rammed you on the safe road berms or, perhaps, you walked into their driveway when the signal was green. The reason could be either of the two or both, but when you do get run over, it invariably hurts – a tad bit more I suspect, because emotional hurt is new to you.

I was walking on the safe berms blinded to the possibility that I’d ever get run over. But, I did – was it the recklessness of the driver who deservingly entered my life or was it the careless stride of the pedestrian within me. Irrespective of the answer, that stroll in the most emotionally vulnerable territories handed me more joy than what I ever got in years of safe confinement. And while the stroll down the highway continues, for what it’s been so far, it has indeed been a Walk to Remember.

This time when I'm home

This time when I’m home,

I will rewind to a decade ago,

And redo the life Shillong gave me a chance to know.

I will wake up early and face up to the pure morning chill,

And do everything that 10 years ago, was part of my normal drill.

I will undertake that walk across the green expanse,

And trek up the hill to hear birds put me in a trance.

This time when I’m home,

I will reopen my cabinet, and glance through books on Maths and grammar,

And go visit the school auditorium to recall my first speech – one of nervous stammer.

I will walk onto the school cricket field and in the ‘catch it’ wails of those there,

Will recall the last-ball victories and first-ball ducks lodged in memory somewhere.

This time when I’m home,

I will lighten my burdened spirit in the Cathedral’s silent hour,

And meet the blind ‘beggar’ outside, who strums magic on his aged guitar.

This time when I’m home,

I will give my mother my ears,

And let her vent the pent up emotions of five distant years,

I will do everything to add to her glee,

Be it gardening with her or making her a cup of warm tea.

This time when I’m home,

I will retire from the maddening race and pause awhile,

And let life walk with me, instead of chasing it across the leisurely mile.

In their eyes, each day they see a Dark Night Rise

It was one of those afternoons in Mumbai – the rain pelting down the rooftop, the sun mired in a lost tussle with the clouds while the winds wrestled for the right direction. It was a day – bane and sterile – incapable of arousing any single thought, let alone inspiring the idea of an entire blog.

And it is with that unexciting texture on my mind that I entered the multiplex to watch Batman’s escapades to save Gotham. And while the movie promised much, I got value for money even before the movie began.

The unending sequence of ads on the gigantic screen was followed by the 52 seconds that most beautifully captured my imagination. This was the time of the National Anthem, but with a different touch.

Those participating in the rendition were children, the likes of which had never seen the sun rise or heard the birds chirp. They were kids, presumably in their early teens, living a life, parts of which God had discounted at their very birth.

How then did they connect Jana Gana Mana like no one else had ever done? Their hands glided the air as the tune read – Vindhya Himachal Yamuna Ganga, their legs ankled up in lofty fashion to symbolise the gigantic reach of Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, Maratha; as their eyes glistened with pride at the last salutation – Jaya He Jaya He Jaya He. This was patriotism speaking through silence, this was nationalistic fervour shining through darkness.

At that moment, how many of us gasped a sympathetic sigh for the ‘incompleteness’ of their lives. A strange paradox it is, but my guess is their incomplete lives were far more complete than ours.

From what I saw on the screen, they had made those 52 seconds their own – breathing in feelings and communicating through symbols – far louder and clearer than words could ever achieve. We have been gifted the science to see and hear better than them, but they have learnt the art to feel and live better than us.

When words speak louder than action!

“It’s only words, and words are all I have to take our peace away”

This modified version of Boyzone’s famous number, to me, captures the quintessential cause of most conflict.

Often, it’s words - incisive, brutal and scathing – that germinate hurt, discord and discontent.

It’s only after war has been fought in words that battle lines are drawn on the ground. Aided by context and people, words alone push individuals to the point of no return. Often relationships, laden with years of effort, purpose and meaning, are diluted by a single moment of verbal failure.

Do parties then attempt reconciliation? Yes they do. Karpman’s Persecutor embraces the role of a Victim – apologetic and desperate – to mend the earlier errors. But, the ‘erstwhile Victim’, now the Persecutor, is, perhaps, too hurt to forgive. The Rescuer, meanwhile, is seen as an ally of the Victim and the Persecutor has little choice but to be indifferent to both.

Is indifference then the end of conflict? Or is it the beginning of the end of the relationship? While there isn’t enough theory to substantiate either point of view, I suspect a state of indifference marks a critical threshold – either it gives space for an unprecedented resurgence to the bond or, as several cases would suggest, it marks the first stanza in the dirge that echoes the obituary for the relationship.

And sometimes still, indifference is not a mediating step – rather it is an end in itself. My guess is that conflict gets most excruciating when the state of indifference attains a degree of permanence.

So, the next time you wonder why your best comrades and friends have drifted away from you, revisit the past and look for that 'one word' that made all the difference. 

If thoughts could count...

“She is gone. But, I am glad. Her struggle has ended..“

This piece could well qualify as a mistimed discourse, especially at a time when there’s enough on my plate to keep me engaged. But, a compulsive thought lingers on in my mind and I’d feel suffocated, almost choked, if I didn’t ventilate it out.

I have earned the distinction of being deep as a thinker and subtle as a writer. Unfortunately, both the attributes evade me as I give words to my thoughts. Is there a more subtle way to state somebody’s passing away or is there a deeper, more mature, way to look at death and beyond?

This piece is about a close friend, arguably the best ever I’ve had. It’s as much about the biggest loss she has suffered till date as it is about my inability to be around her in this moment of grief.

She has been a fighter, one of the best I’ve known, and she will come out of this trough. That’s my thought, my belief and my confidence. But, do thoughts alone count? Panning the last 4 years, I can’t recall any single episode when I was up against a challenge and she wasn’t around. In thoughts, in words and in actions, she was always there in every which way possible.

It’s this inequity of friendship that churns me from within. I have never wanted to be on the ‘more benefitted’ side of the Friendship Equilibrium. But, this is one of those emotional scales where she has outweighed me at every step.

As my life gets mired up in the rigour of corporate life, I ask myself how many more people will have to make do with my thoughts alone in their moments of grief. As I pray for the departed soul, I am honest in my thought; as I condole my friend, I am still honest in my thought, but the big question still stares me in the face -- do thoughts really count?