A WHOLE LOT OF LOVE

I'm on my spiritual trip, allegedly. I’m at an ashram in South Kerala which also has a college of higher studies in its premises. To be honest, I’m there to visit my sister who’s trying to change the world through her academic pursuits. I wander along the seashore – very conveniently there happened to be one right there – thinking. Not about anything in particular, not with purpose, not with reason, just thinking. Can one be free in love? I think and I think till the mind goes into quarantine, the spirit shrinks, and the soul wants to go to sleep. I have no answers, just questions.

I meet my sister, my non-biological sister, later in the day. I don’t really know why I keep stressing on the non-biological part. We first met about five years ago in my college where she just started teaching. As we started knowing each other, we knew that we had some kind of strange cosmic connection. Having felt the absence of a sibling, although I did have an elder brother, I proclaimed to the world that we would henceforth be siblings for life. I was so excited about the whole thing that I started celebrating festivals and doing all the regular stuff brothers and sisters did, inclusive of nasty fights and arguments.

She’s here now. After the usual exchange of pleasantries we're back to doing what we do best: being argumentative. We discuss the ill effects of smoking for the sake of variety. I begin to realise that it is a great travesty that I have a smoking problem and the world – led by my sister – needs me to stop it. I try very hard to keep my calm. Anyway, I proclaim, complete with the usual theatrics, that one cannot love with detachment. We pause and we wonder, contemplating the gravity of what I just said. At least I guess that she is equally amazed at this new discovery.

I begin the speech. Megalomania is so in today. “The love between young lovers, old lovers, the love of the master to his slave or his pet, the love of a mother towards her child, the love for blueberry cheesecake, love for classical music, love for being in love, love for making love, love for being loved and the love for love itself. There is an alarmingly high amount of love around us and we're a race at war all the time. Enough said. All these forms of love are perceived through the senses. We need the senses. We need them to feel that love within us. But do we really feel all this love? What if true love – the one that will set us free - cannot be realized at all?” This would be a good time to pause, I realise.

My relentless sister surprises herself. “Oh, love does exist alright. I have a whole lot of love. Maybe love is just a feeling that exists without form,” she says fully realizing that she has begun to amaze me. “Maybe it's all in the head, in its purest form. And then we fill that space in our heads with all kinds of material till it gets a little too hot in there. We probably think we need all that stuff for love to survive, not realizing that we're becoming more and more bound to a point at which we often feel that we're growing out of love and ‘the charm is dying out’. Maybe we have buried the actual love so deep that we only see what's hovering over it. In effect, we have objectified love. We have lost our independence to love. In fact, we don't even know what it is going to take to free us.”

Finding it difficult to breathe, I concede that it is true. Excuse me, my dear sister, but I haven’t conceded defeat yet. However, I can make peace with the whole ‘we have objectified love’ thing. “So why did we have to become brother and sister to feel love? Couldn’t we have remained friends? Isn’t that objectification?” I’m approaching the tipping point. And just while I’m about to declare victory she’s at it.

“I’m guessing that you will come to this bizarre conclusion that everything in this world is random, nonsense, and without much meaning or grand purpose. Before I even go to that vacuous, asocial space of yours let me ask you if you feel love inside of you all the time whether or not you’re with people,” she says with great confidence. I can sense the mercury rising.

 “What a ludicrous question?” I ask. I am entering that vacuous space and have no real idea of what I’m talking about. “Firstly I’m not contesting love in its various forms- or was it without form-and secondly, I don’t really like your question.”

“Gotcha!” she almost screams with great pride. She has already made plans of what she specifically wants me to buy for her. A chocolate brownie, I’m guessing. Till the bitterness of running out of words to say sinks in, I settle for some Kerala chai. I know that you’re thinking I’m a bad loser, but I actually love the tea they make around there. I smile at the innocent and instant objectification of love that just happened. Holy tea!

My mind wanders aimlessly to a day four years ago. We were in college and it was a perfectly normal breezy day in the greatest city in the world and there was my sister, standing and waiting for me impatiently, with two lunchboxes. We had this ritual about having lunch together. To correct myself, it was she who generously offered to get lunch for me every day, fully aware that I could pay for my rather tasteless meal from the college canteen. But it wasn’t just the lunch that I fell in love with. We actually got along. But there were days we didn’t. Those were the days I thanked the delicious food for filling up those nonconversations. Maybe I held on to the lunches a little too strongly. Maybe we all need something to hold on to.

We walk back, in silence, from the beach to reach the cafeteria in the ashram canteen. Just while I’m looking at the menu, the lady at the counter asks me if I would like some freshly baked chocolate cake. Perfect, this is just what I needed. I’m not sure if I’m angry at the poor lady for asking that question or if I’m thrilled at some newfound meaning of the world giving me a chance to return the favour (of all those lunches) to my sister.

“Let them eat cake,” I say and place two gorgeous looking slices of chocolate cake on the table. We both laugh hysterically. Just when the laugh subsides, she turns to me and asks, “Didn’t you just say you loved tea?”

The Plastic Girl

I finish my cigarette, dispose the butt and the plastic teacup in the dustbin next to the tea shop and walk away. I look around to find a few street hawkers - one of them selling watermelons, another selling coconut. But one particular shop draws me towards it.

The shop is a piece of tarpaulin spread on a wide footpath with plastic and electronic items placed on it. It’s got optical fiber lamps, alarm clocks, artificial flowers and small decorative table lamps. One optical fiber lamp has a red heart as its base with the words ‘I love you’ written in white colored italics. There’s a singing parrot alarm clock with the parrot figures looking rather lifelike. 

And then there is the girl. She is about four or five, wearing a frock sitting next to the tarpaulin, swaying to some song she’s probably singing in her head. It’s a purple frock with a beige collar and little golden flower patterns that shine during the dark, I’m sure. I almost suspect that she’s the sole manager of the shop while I notice a middle aged man leaning to an electrical grid box, his eyes fixed on the road looking out for potential customers. The girl is bored and is leaning on a large empty suitcase placed next to the shop. She’s restlessly looking around for something interesting and still making hand gestures. It’s a rhyme from school or an item number, I think. Why not? A school girl eating ice cream, along with her mother, goes past the shop glancing over the wide array of items. An old man who is negotiating a price with the owner is convinced after thorough testing of the plastic item. He pays the cash and walks away with a brand new table lamp. The owner counts the cash and places it in his wallet and watches the little girl.

The plastic girl picks up her favourite toy and looks at the owner. My mind wonders what it
is about little children being placed as sellers in a lot of shops in India tea shops, fruit
stalls, candy stores and now even plastic shops. Maybe it is the element of sympathy that
would persuade people to stop and look. Consider making the purchase.
She probably wants to get back to her books now.

The detour

I had to do it. I wanted to do it. To break the norm, break the routine and do something I normally wouldn't  The first step was of course my mode of travel. I went up to a random van that was parked at the junction half a mile from my house. I asked the driver if he’s going that way, signalling with my left hand. He nodded. I boarded the vehicle. A couple of people returning from their offices and heading home boarded as well. I put on my favourite song Deliverance from my phone in full volume with my headphones on. It was as if I was beginning to understand its meaning in greater detail. The other passengers got down in their designated stops. Very soon I had to too. The driver kept looking at me in his rear view mirror. The van came to an abrupt halt at a busy junction; the driver turned around and looked at me signalling that this was my stop. But I wanted to be in the van, against the gushing wind, just looking through the window. I looked out the window and found a couple of crossroads and asked him where those roads would lead to. He said names of places that I had never heard of and that was all I needed. I paid him ten rupees, thanked him and walked away. The van disappeared and I was looking at a signage that read “Singapura PO”. The irony couldn't be missed, after being in the city for more than 6 years and having witnessed its growth since I was about 8. I smiled and headed towards Singapura.

Clad in capris and a humorous Che Guevara tee shirt with my headphones on, I was already attracting attention from people who couldn't care less about my presence. The music should stop now and the sounds of mooing cows, angry people and incessantly honking vehicles should sink in, I thought while turning my phone off. I walked. I walked like I had to be somewhere, somewhere specific. Like I were a tourist looking for directions in every signage, every advertisement hoarding, and every Iyengar Bakery hoping to find something new in each one of them. And then Stanford Public School happened. It was right there, not half as big as my tiny college campus, with the word Stanford painted on its wall in the most grotesque (read horrible) font possible. Yes, now I look at typefaces every time I read text. Sigh.

 Moving on at full speed, considering I usually walked very fast, I noticed the landscape was getting increasingly un-Singapore-like. The roads got narrower, carelessly thrown garbage was more vivid and it was Christmas for dogs, cows and birds – all of them full of plastic I could tell. That is when I saw the abandoned temple on top of a small hill. I had to go off-track and self-imposed rule number one of the journey was not to get too distracted. I decided to go check it out regardless. The hill had tiny steps made of stone and I almost ran. I reached the top and found a small family of dogs – about 4 puppies and their mother – at a distance. It was oddly poetic to find them outside a temple that had gone without worship or prayer for ages. I took a step towards the temple and the mother looked at me like I had just walked into their house without asking. She was angry and started barking relentlessly clearly out of defence. I heard a lady’s voice from the bottom of the hill. “It bites”, she shouted and I could feel my heart in my mouth. As expected, the mother started running towards me and there was nothing I could do apart from gesturing in my shivering hands to stay the fuck away. I even tried the usual bend-to-pick-up-a-stone trick and it didn’t seem to work. The lady realised it rather soon, thankfully and she yelled something at the mother in some dialect of Kannada, which is when the running stopped midway. The barking continued however. Carefully I got down the hill like I was climbing down a ladder, with my eyes fixed on the dog. “There’s nothing over there, what were you looking for?” yelled the lady. With a sheepish grin, I replied “Oh of course, I just wanted to look what was there” and without turning back I walked to the road and just kept walking, leaving behind laughing children and puzzled ladies who had come out of their homes hoping to witness a demonic destruction in the hands (or teeth, or even claws) of the watchful protector of mankind in their house of worship. “Man’s best friend! What am I, a monster?” I yelled at the voices in my head. After that I swore to never take a detour out of whim.

(to be continued)

What it is, what it is.

So I'm on my spiritual trip. I wander along the seashore, (yes, very conveniently there happened to be one to aid my thought process) thinking. Not about anything in particular, not with purpose, not with reason, just thinking. Is freedom really possible? I think and I think till the mind dies, the spirit shrinks and the soul wants to go to sleep. I have no answers, just questions.

I meet my sister later in the day. After the usual exchange of pleasantries, we're back being argumentative. We discuss about the ill effects of smoking and how one can love with detachment. I pause and I wonder. The love between young lovers, old lovers, the love of the master to his slave or his pet, the love of a mother towards her child, love for blueberry cheesecake, love for classical music, love for being in love, love for making love, love for being loved and the love for love. So much love around us and we're a race at war all the time. Enough said. Something strikes me. All these forms of love are perceived through the senses. We need the senses. We need them to feel that love within us. But what if love cant be realized at all? Does it cease to exist? I don't want to think it does. But I don't know for sure. Maybe  love is just a feeling that exists without perception. Maybe it's all in the head, in its purest form. And then we fill that space with all kinds of material till it gets a little too hot in there for our soul to expand. We probably think we need all that stuff for love to survive, not realizing that we're becoming more and more bound. Maybe that's that point we often say that we're "growing out of love". Maybe we have drowned the actual love so deep, beyond hope for recovery, that we only see what's hovering over it. In effect, we have objectified love. We have lost our independence to love. In fact, we don't even know what it is going to take to free it.

It is true. Freedom is an illusion. We are all hopelessly bound. I have figured it all out, which is nothing short of genius. My sister disagrees relentlessly. Time for some Indian chai from the western cafe, I figure. She agrees on that one. So much for a brother's love for his sister. I walk away.

Change

So I woke up this morning and declared that this day be a no-smoking day. As clichéd as it sounded, there was an unusual calm in the manner the day progressed. After the grand Bangalorean breakfast of two greasy, coriander-garnished ragi dosas and chai at a nearby darshini, which was by the way filled with smokers who had the traditional after-the-idli-vada-sambar cigarette along with their third coffee of the day, I went straight to the grocery store to buy washing soap. 

Just one cigarette wouldn’t hurt. It’s the thought that counts, I am going to quit anyway. Well not exactly quit, quit – I mean that would be unreasonable and downright unachievable – but considerably reduce. 

Or not, I really don’t know. Fuck.

So, now then, chai and dum, five plus six equals eleven rupees - not so much considering the kind of college I go to. Go straight, take the second left, and just make sure you catch Subbu’s eye, He’ll know. He always knows. My regular dose of opium will be handed over. 

That’s all good, but what happened to the weather now? The Bangalore weather is like a monkey who doesn’t know what to do next; hence you never know what’s coming. It was perfectly cool a while ago and now it’s a bloody furnace.

Okay, it IS hot. But it’s not like I haven’t smoked in such weather. Bitch, please!

I knew I wouldn’t enjoy it anyway. So I let this pass. Now I had a herculean task at hand -washing all the clothes from the last two weeks. That’s the price one pays for opting sense over convenience. After reliving the cloth-washing memories from my hostel days complete with filthy orange colored tiles et al, I quickly had a bath and headed off for lunch as I had got this sudden craving for chicken biryani. After relishing the awful, styrofoam-like chicken I headed back home. Surprisingly the voices fell quiet. I guess everyone needs some sleep.

Wake up! It’s five-thirty. The cigarette is my reward. The nights in the city are always pretty cold and it is really impractical to not smoke tonight. Whatever I do, it will happen. Wait for it.

I waited. Much to my delight and surprise, nothing happened. After some usual loafing around, I finally decided to get out of the house at seven. Yes, it was cold and yes, I did decide what I was going to do next. Without stopping at Subbu’s – I couldn’t spot him this time, his wife was taking care of business – I headed to the market road. The familiar hustle-bustle and the not-so-friendly debates outside Iyengar bakeries welcomed me. This was my textbook definition of the current Bangalore. Oh what would I do without this city! I walked further and spotted a Bangalore Juice Center. After quickly examining the place, not that I could see much of it considering that it was just a six by six shop, I ordered my Papaya milk shake and waited. 

I watched men smoking away (my normally-impeccable eyesight could even spot what brand of cigarettes they were smoking, not that it mattered much) and chit-chatting. I turned away and waited for the little boy to put papaya slices into the mixer, run it for 7 seconds and deliver my drink. Strangely the milk shake didn’t have any milk. When I asked him why, the boy mumbled something in hindi which I believe meant that milk and papaya aren’t very compatible. I silently drank the “milk shake” which wasn’t that bad and stormed towards my house. On my way, I saw people gather around a popular chat joint and eat their panipuris which were of course taken out of the pani-filled pots by the strong, bare hands of the panipuriwalla. I smiled.

Hold that thought. What happened to the reward? I can see that Subbu’s is still open. Perfect timing. Let’s end the day with a smoke.

Change. Why are we so afraid of it that we second guess the outcomes and are afraid to even try something out of the ordinary? Why does it cause so much of imbalance?  Newton would be proud to know that his laws were being interpreted in more than one ways. 

I didn’t smoke. No. Not today. I like this change and I’m not sure what this will lead to. But I’ll worry about it another day.

Facing the new

I said my goodbyes, promised to stay in touch, without really understanding what I was going to leave behind, and left.

I walked into a world where I could dream, explore and maybe ignore my apprehensions, those demons that drove my dark side. There was more on the other side. A side without emptiness, that ruled my life. I realized slowly that I had to rebuild myself, rewire my brain and, possibly, even rewrite my destiny. Clearly, this wasn't planned in the most meticulous way. I was not prepared, not that I'm any better now. Just saying. Then there were these people. Two questions that recurred in my head were "Where do they come from?" and "How do they do it?". How they walked with elan, their off-the-bat-creepy appearances notwithstanding, and talked like they owned the crowd around them - yes, there was one, always. How their little idea could strike a fight, melt hearts and even change the world. This is exactly what I needed. People so sure of themselves that they made me feel like a complete idiot unsure of himself at any point whatsoever. After the initial grand confidence breaker, I started wondering. What is it going to be now? And then it struck me, like a canon ball, slow and unassuming. I have a story to tell. I have a reason to be here. I am what I am, slow to observe, quick to judge and quicker to speak. An alien in a world of super-evolved humans, seeking to find a place in their intellectual space. But I shall not quit. At this point, I thought of a song titled "Hours of Wealth" by Opeth.


Found a way to rid myself clean of pain
And the fever that's been haunting me
Has gone away

Looking through my window
I seem to recognize
All the people passing by
But I am alone
And far from home
And nobody knows me

Never heard me say goodbye
Never shall I speak to anyone again
All days are in darkness
And I'm biding my time
Once I am sure of my task I will rise again

Thus I wondered. I had a long and winding road ahead. I needed sleep.