Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The Pensieve to my Soul ....err, not really


I can perhaps call myself one of those fortunate (or unfortunate, maybe) souls who does have tangible memories. They exist in the journals I kept, in the diaries I never completed ..AND the least likely of them all.... in my Gmail inbox. I'm not too proud of the role and impact technology has had on me growing up. It's like embracing the fact that the Kindle can never replace a real book and that a TOI news app really does not feel right when you want to sip your morning coffee and read the paper (even if the purpose that morning really is only procrastination before starting your day)

Coming to the point of this blogged stream of consciousness... I stumbled upon something just a few minutes back. It's a little embarrassing but it reminds me of a time when I had the courage to do just about anything. It was perhaps the naivety in the thoughts of a thirteen year old, or I was just undaunted by the opinions of others due to lack of experience with those opinions, back then. Dated the 23rd of February 2006, I found lying peacefully in my inbox, an email that I had written to the then President of India, the honourable APJ Abdul Kalam. Quite an idol of mine then and even now, I wrote to him about my ambition and my dream, of becoming an astronaut. Now, now, don't groan I know it was quite a cliche ambition but I was dead serious while it lasted. And you never know, there is still time to somehow wind up in the field of astrophysics (not really, but we can dream can't we) and if all else fails, well, and if I strike gold or stumble upon the bucket under the rainbow I can probably buy my way up (literally)



the end of the half year that was two thousand and thirteen


If you thought you were lazy, you haven't met the flies buzzing about in my room. Their name is quite the paradox because they don't really do much flying. Maybe science offers an explanation, such as the altitude difference. Because the ones here, well, they're pretty much the dormant version of the species. Sure, their autonomic system is pretty dandy. They still manage to escape my clutches as I try to clasp them in my fist, pretending to myself like I'm a frog trying to tongue-trap my dinner. But their motor skills...hmm not so much. They wouldn't make any parent-fly proud. They wouldn't make good candidates for any red bull advertisement after downing ten cans of it, even...hypothetically, of course.

As for anybody who has Ophidiophobia, count yourself out. You wouldn't need the sight of an actual snake to pee your pants, the thing called a millipede (that I just managed to trick out of my room, phew!) is enough for that. The millipedes here help redefine the integer 1,000,000. Not only are they faster than the flies around here, they refuse to leave your bedroom and go around in circles till they make you dizzy.

Enough about the wildlife here. And it's not like I'm even living in a forest, really. This is pretty much the most advanced town in this district of Uttrakhand. Almost kills the environment-friendly scholar in me as I count the blessings urbanisation has brought to us city-dwellers. Not like I ever thought of myself as a city-dweller before. But  short trip has been enough to knock some practicality in my head. My head, which is the nest of many a moth that while traversing the distances decides that it is just the right moment to make that pit stop.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

A little time and a little change and the wonders it can do



Recently, I took a trip to the land of my ancestors, to my roots. When I hear the name of this land, I think of about three to five things before I recall vaguely in my head that I myself hail from this land. I think - paan, ganga, bhojpuri, old people and aashrams. And I'm not that wrong, in fact I am quite accurate. It IS unfair to generalise or to associate a city with a few keywords but it is bound to happen. A few adjectives that I missed out however can fortunately be covered because of the experiences of the last 24 hours to be exact and I shall list them as follows: paan, potholes, politics, paan, and insomnia. The last one is very much subjective, but then again, so is this post.

It struck me, however, and not for the first time that I have been brought up very differently from anybody I know. It was like there was nothing to build on except the immediate and we had to start from scratch we actually did and we actually built something new. Foundations seem to be overrated but I guess they are in substance foundations that have just evolved and moulded and mulatto-ed and turned into something new. 

Part of this experience did involve holding on to something and to the place where I come from, and where I SHOULD belong, and all this while while I was waiting to experience it I did not realise that I had, already. That I didn't need to because roots and ancestors might be a cause for a meaning but at the end of the day, you may live where you live and that may be anywhere, but you are who you are and you ARE the people who made you who you are.