I need ...

From the Victoria Memorial, Kolkata.

On my way to office in the morning, I start early to office these days, about 8.30 in the morning, to beat the traffic mainly, and its about that time all the little kids ride out to their schools. And today, I was rather slowly riding, listening to by black cat's sweet purring, and this queer scene caught my eyes.

She was a very little girl, tiny infact, perched on the back of a black Bajaj Avenger cruiser bike, and her dad was in front, on the way to drop her at school. She had a typical oversized green school sweater that reached almost till her knees, covering her skirt. A bit of her checquered skirt was though still visible on one of her legs. She had one feet of her placed on the pillion's footrest, and this left her in a queer position of having to hang the other leg free in the air on the other side as her legs were not long enough to rest both of them on footrests. Still, her tiny shoes were not falling off for the little buckles. She had nowhere to hold on that black beast, and could only huddle onto her dad's shirt in a full embrace, but even in full stretch, her hands were barely reaching till his rib cage. Her head as a result had to be held to a side, with her cropped hair constantly being ruffled by the wind. She had a pale face and I couldn't exactly decide whether she was smiling as the wind caressed her face.

I passed the Avenger in a minute, and for a moment, she looked up and through my helmet's visor, my eyes locked with hers. They still had that indecipherable expression in them.

Would he be loving his daughter so much, doting on to her, like Rhett Butler, when he would pet and love his little blue eyed girl, Bonnie Blue Butler? Taking her to walk with him in the evenings, adjusting his large strides with her tiny steps, and answering her thousand questions. Maybe taking her for a ride in his black beast, with her perched in the front, her hair blown back by the wind.

And she, what would she be feeling. Her life is just starting, there's so much of it awaiting for her to breeze through. So far away from now, would she need him then, just the way she needs him now? And ... would she ever regret having to need him like this now?

Take me back, to the rivers of belief ...

Take me back, to the rivers of belief
Take me back, to the rivers of belief,
My friend
I look inside my heart
I look inside my soul
I promise you,
I will return

-- The Rivers of Belief, Enigma, MCMXC a. D.

Dreamless ...

From an exhibition of fashion illustration at Alliance Francaise ...

At night my mind does not much care
If what it thinks is here or there.
It tells me stories it invents
And makes up things that don't make sense,
I don't know why it does this stuff.
The real world seems quite weird enough.

-- Bill Watterson, The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes.

Cue ...

There's nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly ....

.....

.... but he remembered how he stood on the terrace and saw her leaping over a high green hedge at the end of the lawn. The hedge seemed too high for her little body; he had time to think that she could not make it, in the very moment when he saw her flying triumphantly over the green barrier. He could not remember the beginning nor the end of that leap; but he still saw, clearly and sharply, as on a square of movie film cut out and held motionless forever, the one instant when her body hung in space, her long legs flung wide, her thin arms thrown up, hands braced against the air, her white dress and blond hair spread in two broad, flat mats on the wind, a single moment, the flash of a small body in the greatest burst of ecstatic freedom ....

 -- Gurusagaram, O. V. Vijayan.

Resonance ...

Blue guitar of mine ...

Taking my guitar out after eons, I undertook the painstaking task of tuning it. Tuning the guitar is some part of this whole exercise that I like much. The blue guitar, tuned long long back, I had kept it with slacked strings so as not to bend the bow over a long period. Now how does this process of tuning it makes you smile? Resonance. You tighten the lower string, listen to it, and as you have no reference, what you can do is make sure that it sounds sweet. Now you tighten the upper string, to just about the same tautness. Then you start from the first fret of the upper string, press your left index finger on the string, and strum it together with the lower. And you listen for resonance. No, it is not to be heard, they are both beating in frequencies off by miles, and the beats die down fast. You move to the second fret, press the finger again, and strum. Beats, but you note with a little dismay, no resonance yet. You move again, to the next fret. Same dying beats. Next, and the next and the next. And then just about when your starting to frown, you have pressed your finger on some fret, and strummed it together with the lower.

'Clinggggg ...' .. again .. 'Clinggggg ...'

Like a distant church bell tolling, the strings are beating together, resonating, like a beautiful circle that feeds itself, and you, have that stupid smile on your face, just the same one you'd have inside when your girl bursts out laughing for the horrible PJ you just cracked.

And I smile for a few seconds more, listening to the church bells again ... and again.

:-)

Memories of the Fall ...

Hot days leave me, with silent skies
leaves fallen and soft earth to walk
And I sleep nights filled with an immense peace
Only that is not enough

The Last Leaf ...

Brittle light I hold ...

Once I used to think they were sadness, orangish yellow under the dark night sky, on the black road, and silently humming, standing still with incredible sadness. A sadness so heavy and deep, that you could almost feel it in the night air hung over the deserted road. Until a few weeks back, on one fine night, when I was back from a week's stay away, I stepped out to see that all of the orange yellow sodium vapor lamps lining the road in front of my home have gone, and instead there were bright white fluorescent bulbs, laughing, a certain kind of mocking laughter.

I looked around, and all of them were gone.

But I found a single one, left behind, a last leaf, at the very end of the road. I wonder why they didn't change it.

And now at nights, when I go near that sole orange yellow light, I feel, its rather strange, I no longer feel they were sadness, but instead bright cheer, heart filling smile of happiness, spread in the orange yellow night air, over the parked cars standing still, over the fallen dead leaves, and the black asphalted road.

A lonely, joyful, bright, yellow smile ... and silent night all around.

Amma maram ...

It feels good to be back and near you.

You know what? I've grown.

Okey, I know, I'll never look grownup to you. Take that hand off my hair! ... no! now! ... ey! .. mmm .. , just a little up ... not with all the fingers ... m ..

Listen, you know what? I am not that lonely now. Yeah, you were so understanding, I don't remember ever having to explain to you why I'm sad. And I don't think I could have also, if somebody asked me. But you never did and, and ... !!! It irritates me when you smile like that!! ... don't rub that hard! ... m

Did you miss me? Did the winters trouble you?

I'm sorry to have been away. But I had to, you know, right? I know you do. And you know what? I was happier, smiling and ... mm ... making friends ... succeeding ... and you know, sometimes you just feel that you have achieved something ... yeah .... okey, okey, for a short time!!! ... see! you have all that skin of yours cracked and crumpled!!! .. do you ever look after yourself ??

Oh! you got new friends! exotic species they are! Do they bite you?? They'll sing? yes? aha! can I hear? what? not now?!!

Eeesh! my legs! can't this crazy guy run somewhere else!

When are you getting your hair cut next? ... is it September yet? nearing is it ? I'll come then to make you warm, m? ... you do it because you feel hot is it ? Then what about the winter?

!!!! Don't say that!!!! I have grown up and I can understand things !!!

I hate your laughter!!! its so idiotic!!! can't you just make one noise instead of a thousand!!!

mmm ... shall I crawl to that cozy hole on your lap? I'm ... its a hot day, isn't it?

Let me look up, to your face ... geee ... mmm ... what? can't I smile?

Hey! don't drop your hair over my face!!! that too half dead ones!!!

gee ... can I keep this one ? ... I've lost the last one you gave me.

Okey, okey, I'll keep this safe.

Yeah, promise!

What time is it?

Can I sleep? Wake me up when the sun sets, m?

I'm going away tomorrow morning.

I'll keep it safe.

Probabilities and Reins ...

As soon as I arrive, everything is possible.

Are we just the product of our history, minted by our past, from the day we are born? History is exactly what it means, it can not be changed. Thinking backwards, as a conscious individual we have no control over how our history is initialized, where we are born into. But does that mean its all Brownian motion, that a life is just life and nothing more?

Life is not just something that you let yourself to be taken through, swirls and rapids, and settle to the inevitable looking, all too real, pseudo peacefulness of whatever state it leaves you at. At the soul of it, that is nothing but plain defeat.

Life, at the very least, is not a predetermined course which leaves you no choices. If looked at in a mathematical way, its rather an outcome of a bunch of probabilities. Probabilities laid out in front of you with slider controls, as in front of a music director trying to compose a song. And you can set the probabilities, high, low, medium, a little too much on the edge and so forth and expect the outcome to be in a certain way with high degree of confidence.

As a minor extremist example, say you want to die of lung cancer - take those slide controls, start smoking, you might find it difficult at start, but you can easily get addicted to it, and start yourself on pan, ghutka and what not, might not be so easy, but that stage will pass, and you can be sure with a high degree of confidence that you will be contracted with lung cancer eventually. But you can't be hundred percent sure, but thats the deal with probability. And say you want lung cancer out of your life like plague, again take control, stay clear of all of the above, might not be easy, but you can get yourself to being used to it, and can be sure with a high degree of confidence that you will not get lung cancer, but yeah, not dead sure. An extremist example is an understatement for this one, but the concept should be universally applicable to many aspects of your life.

One important thing to note is, although setting the sliders might seem very artificial and mechanical tweaking with your life, the music produced is real. Either you let the sliders be on their own and don't care or you set the sliders. Both ways the music is real, it becomes your reality, and there is really no way to tell if it could have been only this way. History can't be changed. You will eventually forget that you tweaked the sliders with great effort.

There are many things you can do, be with, or experience, that can possibly leave you pleasantly contented. It might look artificial and hollow. But if you keep doing more of that, with a very high probability that becomes your reality.

And there are many things that you can do, be with, or experience, that can only do nothing but suck out your faith in everything. It might look inevitable. But if you keep doing only that, with a very high probability that becomes your reality. And do you find yourself asking "This is my reality, how can you say my reality is worse and your reality is better?". The question itself is stupid.

Here, it is assumed that a joyously peaceful state is better for human beings than a resignedly peaceful one. But tweaking with probabilities is not fool proof, coz its just a percentage certain. To end this,

There was this math professor and his friend standing at the rails of their office building. Near their campus were a few army establishments. The professor started pondering over some tables and after some quick punches on his PDA, announced,

"You know Hermann, the probability of the next man coming walking through that road below being an army man is very low. And if you think of the event where the next two of them would be army men; even low, three, lesser, four, five, lesser and lesser. And say, the next fifty of them being army men is as meager as one in a few thousands. I can bet a hundred dollars that such a thing would not happen!"

Hermann was silently looking at the road, the professor also turned and looked.

In a few seconds, a platoon of uniformed men marched past the building.