Creating Notes with Silence

I was sitting in the balcony with the laptop on my lap,
thoughts in my mind forming words on the screen.
The time was evening,
and while us "unnatural" beings
turned on lights and tubes,
the rest of the natural order was ending the day.

This town of mine, this town where I live,
is kind.
People live here, but the sounds of nature can still be heard.
And silence, when presented, is not disturbed.

That day, it was the silence that screamed out to me.
A faint hum, though -
that of birds chirping,
emanated from far corners,
and merged with the silence.

Suddenly ,

the canvas of the sky
was painted with the passage of a flock of birds.
I saw them -
every soldier steady and firm,
every motion synchronized,
every path identical.

As they weaved their magical path,
astounding onlookers but attracting none -
not a single sound escaped their regiment.
And the tranquility of the moment was not broken.

Truly,
the greatest silent orchestra was performed that day.


PS: This poem describes one of the two sights that I saw that day.

Tagged

Here's my addition to this list of those moments of life that make life what it is... Beautiful.

i.
Sitting on the grass - Dejected
Then spotting a squirrel playing nearby.

ii.
Waking up to a beautiful dream.

iii.
Beautiful weather - a splendid day
A spring in your step
And for some reason
Yet incoherent in your mind,
You are on top of the world
And suddenly
The song on the shuffle
Mirrors your exact sentiments.

iv.
Chance meeting with girl
Whose thoughts makes your heart skip a beat.

v.
And she smiles at you.

vi.
Cycling downhill
Down down down...
Wind places people time
Rush past.
And you are unstoppable -
You are born free.

Blowing in the Wind

The fatigue seeps in
As the journey goes on
And the cool breeze of a rainy day
Sweeps in through the window
To ruffle my hair.

I despair -
I came home to sleep
In my mother's lap
And let her weave dreams
While caressing my hair.

And yet I find myself
Beckoned to actions
Of no visible joy.

And then,
To derive solace
I adopt the following belief -
Those are Mom's blessings
Which are blowing in the wind.


[Written while traveling. During my Kolkata trip, June 2008]

The Correct Mood for Writing

According to Old Chinese proverb, there is a correct mood for the art of writing. “Now then”…According to other Old Chinese proverbs, there are in fact correct moods for every pleasurable activity possible to man. For drinking tea. For listening to music. For conversation among friends. And so on.

But we are here to talk about the art of writing. And let us not digress from that.

If we were to dissect the procedure of writing a piece into its’ various constituent parts, we would end up with some of the following –
Event 1: Idea ‘creeps into/overwhelms faculties of’ the writer’s mind.
Event 2: The idea crawls out of mental confines into tangible reality of words.
Event 3: Slash-slash, Cut-cut, Swish and swoosh… Editing.
Event 4: Writer makes someone read it.

Now the question is: Which one of these parts is the most important part of the writing procedure?

Of course, I have absolutely no answer to that question. So why the long premise, one might ask. Well, recently, I experienced a good-writing-mood day. And to best explain the dynamics of this writer’s mind at that time, a sequential dissection of the writing procedure was essential.

On that opportune day, I was in the middle of enacting ‘Act 2’ (or lamely, ‘Event 2’) of the writing procedure. What was the mood in which I was doing that?
(1.) Tired… Extremely so.
(2.) Lonely… Having rejected an offer of going out with some friends.
(3.) Looking for something worthwhile to do.

As it turns out, it wasn’t a good mood that I was in. Yet turned out to be a wise choice to keep writing at that time.

And what was the location of the enactment? Balcony facing South. Sitting on Plastic chair. Looking up to wide expanse of sky to East and West (i.e. when not writing).

Hence the writing continued. Words were being strung together to exhibit an idea whose advent in my mind had occurred previously. Words having the power of uplifting one’s spirit – I felt the meter of my soul rising Up… Up…Up.

And that was the moment when ideas kept coming to my mind. Subjects for future writing, usually so elusive to find, kept presenting themselves. I looked up once and was presented with a sight of immense beauty. A mental note followed – “Must write about this.” Then, a few moments later… another sight. Would I, on another day, and in another mood, have given thought to it? No. But that day I did.

I realized that this was the mood for creation – for the first Act of the great theater of writing. When one’s mood is uplifted, only then, one can appreciate the true beauty of life – of the life that is presented to us on a platter – every day, and at every moment. One but has to know how to spot it.

And what were the two sights, you might ask? Dear friend, let that be reserved for another occasion.

[Image Credits].

PS: [9/22/08] Have managed to pen down one of them. Here.
[10/11/08] The second one is penned down here

And The Leaves That are Green...

Different things strike different people differently. An obvious statement, eh? Yet the tidings of an idle Saturday afternoon compel me to spend my energies in the current relevance of this trite and commonplace remark.

The event was a single occurrence – the completion of one year at Blacksburg. One year of Ph.D… Ah! How much we harp about our own affairs. As if a Ph.D. is the greatest thing on earth.

But I am deviating from the topic. Let me return. One year got over. And there were many things that reminded me of this.

Firstly, the date. 4th August 2008. Exactly one year ago, A and I had landed at Blacksburg. Exactly one year ago, I had lost sleep fearing the loss of my passport. Exactly one year ago, I had made a phone-call back home from a roadside payphone. One year henceforth, memories kept peeping in. Yet life went on as usual on this year's date. The day’s events had their toll and memories remained more-or-less dormant.

Another day... The trickle of new students. Soon turning into high tide. Maps in hand. Keen faces. Joie-de-vivre. Greetings at bus stops. Making plans to play. Invitations for dinner. Meeting seniors. But the seniors have gone through it all. They smile knowingly… “Been there done that”. Life goes on… some people are always starting afresh at a given point of time. At the same time, others think they are stuck in a rut.

Then another day… Registering for classes for the new semester. Going through old notes. Old mails. Old books. Old plans. Newcomers searching for room 2040. Those who searched classrooms once observe patiently, to help if asked. It’s time for them to make new plans.

But all the above occurrences faintly whispered into my mind. Speaking the same thing – “Year ended. Year begins.” At best, some of these were at the decibel level of polite conversations i.e. they were not loud; they were civil, beginning and ending with the permission of both parties involved – the occurrences and my mind in this case. And then one day, the loud blaring announcement ensued. So sudden that I was caught unawares – left speechless for a moment.

I was on the phone talking with my parents. I had stepped out of the building and was sitting on a ledge. Though I was talking with my parents, I confessed to them that my mind was elsewhere. There were so many people outside and I kept watching them. This was so unlike the summer days when one felt like being the solitary researcher on campus. It was a big change and my eyes were taking time getting used to this. But it was an expected change.

And then it happened… While my eyes wandered here and there, they hit upon a sight so totally unexpected that all my senses stopped there for a moment. One single tree amongst the hundreds of trees in my field of view had changed colors. Completely. And almost overnight. I had not noticed it previously. I was forced to nod my head in disbelief – “Yes. The year was actually over.” I had to tell my friends about this – I was sure they would not believe me. I felt like being the first person to notice this phenomenal transformation. Other occurrences could be brushed aside but this was staring you in the face – one could not ignore it.

Later while writing this piece, I am reminded of the Simon and Garfunkel song, “Time hurries on… And the leaves that are green turn to brown.”


Youtube search for the same song.

PS: Here are some interesting pics for Autumn: 1, 2 and the following is a pic of roughly the same area which I saw that day. This pic was taken by my room-mate A. More of his pictures are at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arnab-ocean/.

Bon Appetit

When you take in your daily spoonful
Of milk, cereal, care and worry
Do you remember the people
Who do not worry while eating -
They worry about it.

When having dinner
With egos, quarrels and tiffs
Sitting around you
Do you remember the people
Locked in prison cells
For someone's fault or theirs.
They too have dinner
But with walls for company.

While music to the ears
Pleases some people no more,
Artillery and gunshots
Abuse and injustice
Wails and stifled cries
Are all that some others get.

----

This image is very relevant to the poem. Please do visit.

Meanwhile, I am waiting for permission from the artist to add his/her image on my blog.

Separated... United

The following came up in two totally different moods. Yet I am publishing them together.

-------

How good it feels
To hold you tight
And fall asleep.

=====

Everything that can go wrong
Is going wrong.
Aah! Murphy's Law.
That means there is hope.

=====

PS: While thinking about a title for this post, I remembered the phrase "Two of a Kind". It turned out that my understanding was incorrect.

The definition is:
Very similar individuals or things, as in Patrice and John are two of a kind--they're true hiking enthusiasts.
[Reference]

How To Read a Book in Ten Days

No... this post is not about speed-reading. It just talks about the different speeds at which different people read books.

Many of my friends often tell me that when they pick up a book, they cannot put it down before completing it. I however am not able to do that. Because of that, I finish much fewer books. And sometimes, that makes me feel at a disadvantage to these "pick-up-and-finish-it-off " kind of readers.

Recently, I completed reading "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. I read that book over about 3 months - during which time I completed another book, gave my end-semester exams, traveled to Washington DC, traveled to India... To cut the list short, it would suffice to say that I put the book down many a times. In fact, there definitely were times when I did not feel like picking the book again.

So that was my style of reading the book. However I fail to see any other suitable way of reading it.

During all the time when I was not literally "reading" the book, but was still reading the book (as in when answering the question, "What book are you reading these days?"), I used to live with the characters of the book. Unlike many bestsellers, this book did not have a racy plot to keep one hooked as to what the next event would be. But the characters were strong - so strong that I could feel their presence in my daily life. Many a times, I wondered how Hank Rearden would have reacted to the situations I faced. Or another time, was I being like Jim Taggart when I did something despicable. There were moments when I would feel down and then half an hour of reading the book would turn my emotional "wheel of fortune" by 180 degrees. The same happened in the other direction too.

In sumary, I cannot think of a way by which I could have felt these feelings if I had read this book in one go.

Presently I am reading "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie. Saleem Sinai - another beautifully sketched character. And the many others who happen to be in his life. None of them are spectacular people - each of them are riddled by great defects of character or spirit. But that makes them lifelike. These days, I return to Saleem's world when I am alone. Every time, I spend very little time with them. Yet it feels like time well spent.

One of my friends gets surprised that I have still not finished the book. But I think that finishing the book would mean bidding farewell to these people. And probably that's why I do not hurry the affair.

PS:

1. While writing the post, two books came to my mind which were the complete antitheses of my above stated idea. One which I actually finished in 2 days. But I do not find the Hero of the book, whatwashisname, returning to my life at any time. The book - Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.

Another book, an autobiography(?), after going through the first few pages of which, I wondered how the person writing it was only having righteous thoughts in his mind from the day he was born. Or was he downright lying by not stating everything on his mind. An injustice for an autobiography I thought and hence I did not finish the book. The book - A P J Abdul Kalam's "Wings of Fire"

2. In the interim period (i.e between the initiation of this post and its' final publication), I chanced upon a post by a fellow blogger. I cannot tell you how happy I felt to find my sentiments mirrored by another.












Caption: "Immersed"

Inspirations

Recently, two dialogues from two different movies struck me as inspiring. Quoting them here.

1>> The last line in the trailer of "Flash of Genius" goes as follows

"Makes you wonder what makes a man succesful?

Brains? Talent?

Maybe it's some other thing."

The trailer:

Flash of Genius

2>> From the movie "Kung Fu Panda":

"Yesterday is history
Tomorrow is a mystery
But today is a gift
That is why it is called present."

Who says you can't talk sense and be funny at the same time?

The British are the way they are...

Here's a hilariously written article that I chanced upon recently. It's about how Londoners welcome the summer after a cold spell of winter. And how they get crazy if the summer gets too oppressive (which is something we Indians are regularly used to.)

I'll quote the lines which were highlighted in the original article - they'll give you an idea about the article. A good two lines surely - at least they made me read the article.

"The British are the way they are because our climate is damp, dour and undemonstrative"

"If we consistently had summers like they have in Rio, we wouldn't just grow bananas, we'd go bananas"

On the Look Out

I always maintained that watching English movie trailers is a fantastic way to pass your time. Regardless of whether the movie is good or not, trailers are always 100% entertainment. The Apple Trailers website is a cool place to get to see a lot of trailers. Posted on my entertainment blog are a few which caught my eye when I visited the site for the first time yesterday.

Kid

Kid

Smiles back at me

Aloo chaat in hand

Watching cars pass by.

Inhaling fumes all day

As he dishes out his fare

To hungry wayfarers.

His smile is real

But his life is not.
















(written during my Kolkata trip in June 2008)

The Need To Live

Dementia.

Cancer.

Angioplasty.

Paralysis.

Stroke.
‘She is bedridden for a year.’

‘But it is good that he did not suffer too much.’

‘Which hospital?’

‘Visiting hours?’

‘Her eyes were completely blank.

She didn’t even notice that we were there.’
In a city of ten million people,

Death is a daily occurrence.

But every so often,

A child is born.

And all one needs

To restore the will to live

Is to stare with wonder

At the smile of a child.








(written 24th June 2008, during my Kolkata trip)

Haiku

Here are two samples of Haiku that I came up with - the first one is inspired by a prayer book that I read.

**

Bring me to that moment
where I am at peace.
And let me remain there.
**

I found the secret of living -
In one go,
let it all go.
**

Toothpaste

The sight of the twisted toothpaste at my friend’s place reminded me of my mom. By habit, I always follow instructions while squeezing paste out of a tube – "squeeze from bottom upwards". This results in the tube always having a uniform shape. However, back when I was in school and had just started having my own room and toilet, there were days when my mom would use my tube of paste. And on those days, the effect on the toothpaste tube would be devastatingly different. It would look stricken by some disease, with many contortions here and there. In one day, my mom would distort all my efforts at uniformity.

I tried to bear with my mom’s habit at first. But later, I took a strict stand – if she was to use my paste, she would have to use it my way. After repeated reminders, my mom finally learned to use toothpaste in my fashion.

That was years ago. I now wonder how my mom would have felt when her little child, who she had taught to walk, eat, talk, even brush, started scolding her about the proper usage of a toothpaste.
















PS: This pic came up in Google Images when I searched for "toothpaste". I just had to post it. I thought that the following caption would create a nice connection with the above post:
"With its' twists and turns, life goes on..."

Memories Pops Out of Nowhere

On my visit to Kolkata,

Memories pop out of nowhere.

One day,

Car stuck at random intersection.

Tap at car window -

Hawker selling fare,

Sweet fruit called 'Aash Phol'.

As kids, we would spend afternoons

Devising ingeneous strategies

To bring these fruits

Down to earth.

'Fruits' of our labour,

Eh?

Of another summer holiday

Long gone past.

Another day,

An expert driver

Takes us through

The winding roads

Of a short-cut.

I read the signs

And I notice

The name of the road -

Gorfa.

A friend lived there,

A friend with similar tastes

In music and life.

He would always invite me home

But I never went

Giving one excuse or the other.

That day

I crossed his street

For the first time.

But our paths do not cross anymore

And probably never will -

But who knows?

Stumbling upon some Haiku

A book put up on the exhibit section at our library caught my attention. So I picked it up and read the blurb at the back. It was as follows:

Natsume Soseki’s Kusamakura follows its nameless young artist-narrator on a meandering walking tour of the mountains. At the inn at a hot spring resort, he has a series of mysterious encounters with Nami, the lovely young daughter of the establishment. Nami, or “beauty,” is the center of this elegant novel, the still point around which the artist moves and the enigmatic subject of Soseki’s word painting. In the author’s words, Kusamakura is “a haiku-style novel, that lives through beauty.” Written at a time when Japan was opening its doors to the rest of the world, Kusamakura turns inward, to the pristine mountain idyll and the taciturn lyricism of its courtship scenes, enshrining the essence of old Japan in a work of enchanting literary nostalgia.

It seemed interesting, so I flipped through to see if I could find some interesting Haiku.

I found the following:

Shaking down the stars
out of the spring night, she wears
them bright in her hair.


New-washed hair, perhaps
dampened by moisture from the clouds
of this night of spring.


Poem upon poem
wandering here and there
in the spring moonlight.


Now at last the spring
draws swiftly to its finish.
How alone I am.

.. and this poem, which struck a different note.

As the autumn's dew
that lies a moment on the tips
of the seeding grass,
so do I know that I too must
fade and be gone from this brief world.
( - attributed to poet other than author of the book)

I found the poems appealing and decided to share them. Then I looked at the book-cover and felt that it did justice to the book - poetry is but natural when one sees beauty.



PS: If anyone is interested, here's a book review.

Mathematical Biologist

While going through a book for my research, I found the following worth sharing. (From the section on Mathematical Biology, from "Virus Dynamics" - Nowak and May, Oxford University Press)

There is a shepherd and a flock of sheep. A man comes by and asks, 'If I guess the correct number of sheep in your flock can I have one?' The shephard says, 'Please try.' The man says '83.' The shepherd is amazed; it is the correct number. The man picks up a sheep and walks away. The shepherd shouts, 'Hang on. If I guess your profession, can I have my sheep back?' The man says, 'Please try.' The shepherd says, 'Mathematical biologist.' The man is amazed, 'How did you know?' 'Because you picked up my dog.'

The Joys of Living Alone

So this is what it feels like -

Finally, I am alone at home.
And yes,
I was looking forward to it.

They say,
Change is good,
And that's what I want out of this,
- this solitary, home-alone phase of mine.

Phone lines are open.
And for once,
so are chat lines.
But these are not habits of mine.
...
Time to form new habits, eh?

The pen beckons
and this is created...
but this,
- it lacks the joy,
the frustration,
the repetition,
the spontaneity,
the reality and
the all-sense-pervading feeling
of dealing with a person in real-life.

Is it just me
that I feel like this?

Or maybe I am just too impatient with the pen.

Tribute to a Fellow Blogger

DD started blogging sometime after I started my blog. I have been following his blog ever since. Being a musician, he writes about music on several occasions. Frankly I do not enjoy those posts much.

But sometimes, DD writes candidly about his life, his feelings and his emotions. In many of those, I have found that he has voiced sentiments similar to mine. I however, have never gone on to voice my feelings so openly on my blog. Maybe that's why I identify so much with his writings.

Keep writing DD... Salutations to you.

Here are some excerpts from posts that really "struck a chord".

Words
... grad school matures oneself at least by a decade. May be a decade is an exaggeration, but it does transform you. With thoughts only concentrating on problems, especially algorithms and learning problems in our case, our minds are pure, getting purer.

February 2008
"My life has suddenly become empty for a few reasons. Since at times the void is getting unbearable, I am trying to spend most of my time at work, with friends or at least near people. I never estimated that living alone can get this painful"....
"Think much before you decide to do a PhD friends, it is a huge sacrifice to make for the prime years of your youth." ... "Not many can endure these long years of excruciating pain. You either do it for yourself, for someone else or pretend that you are doing it for someone else. For me, it has now become the first, and it is becoming harder every day."

But the best part is the discussion held through the comments. At the end of a dialogue between people who faced similar problems, some solutions come out.

Gloom
"I was up till morning struggling on my bed, turning from one side to another praying to the gods to bless me with some sleep. Because my prayers come in most selfish occasions, they don't pay me any heed...."