Same Same but different

There has been a rather long sabbatical from the blog and suddenly out of the blue there is a desire to slow down, reflect and write. In a good way, a time to sense and feel the goodness of life and the changes that have come in the past few weeks.

Seems like the longest and the shortest month of life. There was a trip to Leh, Manali, and Dharamshala, followed by a quick dash home and followed by a quick dive into the beaches of Kerala. Spending time travelling always makes me happy and quiet and in a sense very reflective.

As the mountains of Leh submerged one, with the vast open vistas opening up from one range to the other, the silence overwhelmed you. Looking at the road workers, working on the side of the road one could not but wonder at the different lives that people lead..

It filled one with a sense of emptiness, with everything else taking a back seat. Work was not that crucial, life would figure itself out, there was a flow to it, a greater intelligence how else can one explain the intricate mountains, the old monk living in a monastery with the bells chime as a constant sound, the soldiers who had died building the roads, the other who charged up a hill to defend a nation, the brave tea stall owner who choose to come and set up shop at a conflict ridden area.

The hills charm, for the silence and the people that live there.

Ladhak – a culture a region that seemed lost. In the middle of nowhere there seems like a little town plucked out of Enid Blyton book that has been placed there. The palace, the people the houses all smart of an inborn simplicity, a race that over the years built a pact with nature and religion to live life a certain way.

Bhuddism spread itself, represented in houses that were simple from the inside, food that was wholesome yet not complicated, laughter that was there in the eye and yet something was changing. The monasteries were slowly getting deserted, prosperity was knocking on heavens door.

Ironically, the richer the nation got – yes three idiots was a cause, yes Makemytrip had taken the exotic out of leh, yes there was a traffic jam, yes the weather had changed but all this had done something for the person there. Given him a choice – a sense of liberation. Ok fine, this is debate-able, there are lots of larger corporate that are coming and making their seasonal home in leh, the waiter flits from leh and goa, the rafter from rishikesh to zanskar, a moving hybrid population comes in cashes in on the tourist and leaves.

Irrespective of the format of the eco –system, what does end up happening is that there is a sense of money that flows in. Now a smaller family and a richer family, does not feel the mental duty to send a son to the monastery, the number of lamas reduces, and there is a smaller and smaller percentage that comes into the sect.

Reading the Living in Exile by Dalai Lama and the Last Seen in Lhasa, the 2 books on the Tibetian Bhuddist way of life made me realize the vulnerability of their way of life, and how ruthlessly the Chinese invasion has destroyed a culture that was built over years.

Ladhak is not Tibet, its causes are different but its still a similar life, a similar belief system a system that is getting altered and changed. It’s a good thing – the power to choose for oneself what one wants to do. This power is seeing monks relinquish robes, and give us celibacy. It’s a sad thing, seeing the slow decline of a culture, a way of life, a prayer wheel a manner of showing all us tourist hunting, camera totting visitors that when life in your head and city gets too much to handle and do, there is someone, somewhere, whom you met, who life is being lived truly differently..

Not connected, but a visual image that I can never shake from my memories is one of a lady saint I met in the top of Tapovan a few years ago. Tapovan was above Gokmukh – the place from where the Ganges start, it’s a pass that connects Gangotri to Kedarnath – high above any reach of civilization. A south Indian, she had made a tent in that pass her home, spending her day there in solitude – contemplation.

Grinning like a school girl she looked at me straight in the eye and asked - ‘whats the hurry?’ grinned and left again to make some steaming coffee. Never been able to shrug that piercing look of hers off, and that somehow she had looked right through me.

In the end, weeks after the trip I am now remembering what it really meant for me.

underworld

The underworld life.

These are incidents that came into my life in the past 24 hours, random stories that were shared by people in the course of an evening.  There is nothing alarming about them, just an reflection of the Indian canvas that never ceases to explore.

Diva boy called breathless with excitement because he had been called to the dream event of his lifetime, where the person was to come as a threesome. Any combination was a justified, any drug was permitted and anything was allowed to occur. An exploring bisexual, for him it was a dream event with the ooh laaa laas there to applaud and cheer the explorations of mankind. Diva boy, incidentally having opened up this facet of himself has been blessed with experiences galore of kink, threesomes, teeth pulled clothes, night long conversations and wordless intimacies. In a city that makes a kaleidoscope look like  a plane jane, there are new age children who are either recklessly heading towards boredom or are jubilantly appreciating their lives for the here and now, where it ends is anybody’s guess.

A person shared an incident, where the star of a latest Bollywood hit was smashed out of his wits at a Prodigy concert. He was shoved around by the bouncers all over the place and kept yelling that he was now important and they could not do this to him, when it got too much he yelled and said ‘yaar maat karo mere izzat ka kya hoga’ hahahaha, apparently he was so so drunk that the bouncers took him backstage, shoved him into a car and were stripping him to take pictures and sell it for a scoop to a magazine when they were sheepishly discovered by the crew.

2 friends were getting married, and the jai mala was about to take place. A green age newly aware about everything environmental, they suddenly shrieked a piercing yell into the sky, as they saw that the garlands were made of dead flowers. Cut flowers were wilting and bound to die. New relationships cannot be begun with dead flowers and they horrified sent their families to find sandalwood malas that were to replace these. Forgetting that these sandalwood malas are what are used to garland those dead.. Sigh the new age fundas sometimes get to be a bit more than not

A friend organized a conference in Maldives, where top IT businessmen were escorted for fun. One of these dealers was being taken to his car in those golf carts that you drive from place to place. The driver was a women, in the night, an obvious statement that she wanted to be laid, comeon why else would she be driving him to his room? Or so he thought, and so decided to drag her to his room. Another guy was mesermerised by a german lady he met in the corridor and in a phase of spontaneous love decided  to hug and smooch her. She however was not in a very loving mood and got his ass sent packing right back home.. the lovely Indian ambassadors that we harbor is amazing.

There was the experience of a man who took 2 years to head on 5 dates, a couple vacationing in the high Himalayas who were shocked to see hairy boxer clad men, semi naked plunge into pools of sulphur water and yell in glee. They sat holed up in their room and didn’t budge for day 1, 2 and 3.

In the mean time, my closest friend and dearest enemy who is reading this post for sure is truly going under.. water and meeting sharks in those exotic places and nations whose names start with Z. He must have been an eagle in his past life, soaring over and over one nation wondering where all to land.

Wondering what today shall expose.

acknowledge

It hit me that I am not listening to myself.  In the rush of life there is a lot of things to be done, firefighting here, fire fighting there, meetings here and there, travel now, get the flight, decide this, decide that, move this, sign up... I have allowed myself by myself to become flustered and knotted.

These knots are not unwinding in a hurry, each knot has a rope coming up leading to the other knot, a quest for answers within answers that take place. In this hustle that I have in my mind i need to Pause for me, to rediscover what and who i am.

Self preservation.

This is where it is stemming from.
I have a dream and believe in it, and am so very keen to begin living it
that i cant wait.
yet, there is a little demon inside that tells me .. what if it does not happen?
what then..
life teaches u lessons
learn from it

Yet there is the need to give the dream all it needs
fuel it, flame it and let it leap to life
between the practical and the emotional
am not sure where i stand

all i know is that its finally time to acknowledge that inside of me
i am not ok
i am not at ease
and i am scared. very scared.

Sitting in office with weepy eyes, i am reminded of time a few years ago
for me to be good to me
i need me to feel me
slow down
pamper urself and know that its all right

time for the yoga mat to come out again.

spaciousness

Lie back on  the grass

Look up at the sky

Just watch the stars and the sky

see the moon

observe the stars and know

that there is someone, something, 

somewhere somehow,

holding the entire galaxy up above

Was watching Kaun Baneha Coreparti yesterday (become a millionaire; game show) that posed a question for the Rs 50,00,000 question. 

What planet has seven hills named after the 7 astronauts who died after the Coloubmia space shuttle disaster. The options were Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury. 

Thats when my dinner companion gave me information that I was ignorant about. 

Did you know that Venus is full of clouds that are so dense that the land is impossible to reach? That Jupiter is  a whirling mass of gasses and matter and there is no land that is yet formed as the heat/gravity is not dense enough to compress and form land? That the heat of the Mercury, is not permitting any human launch to take place.

I remember a trek to Hemkunth Sahib, about 8 years ago... on a chilly night I sat and watched the stars. Silent. Calm. 

And it hit me, that I too was a part of this cosmos. The rigours of daily life made me forget, made me feel so in control that i let the intelligence of the cosmos be assumed, yet as the song of thomas crown affair stated....

And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

There is no huge moral of the story behind this post, just a step back finger on the lips, head kocked in wonder at the sheer massiveness of the space that we live in, everyday and the extent we don't acknowledge or note. 

No I am have not been hired by Robin Sharma.