It is Mumbai, and the co-existence of cats and dogs here is unusually evident. They sit atop cars, beneath them, cross roads in rush and feed on significantly large rat population or sugar – flour snack harmful even for humans – biscuits!

What it parallels neatly with, is the co-existence of sub species of homo – sapiens populating the city so thickly. There are humans who are rats, who fear the big cats traveling in limos and suits, there are cats, who are subverted by the dogs in AC cabins at 28^th floors, yet, all of them, together, co-exist. Very harmoniously. In packs, hurrying across the roads and not talking to each other.

The city feeds on hustle, and hustle feeds on humans. And the entire chain reverses itself periodically. Humans feeding on hustle, hustle on city, city on the humans! Yet, the beauty is not afar.

It reflects the community our country is, united by seashore and concrete jungles, Bollywood and street plays, ships and double decker buses, tree shades and neat black roads, yellow leaves and rains, marine drive and local trains. Mumbai is a complete package, filled with people, going to people, travelling with people and at the end, coming back to people.The city breathes on its people, and its people breathe through the city!

A city filled with Veds as well as Taras, Arjun Saluja from ZNMD who freaks out on losing his phone on a trip to Spain as well as Imraan Qureshi who paints his heart out. This city is home to art and equally open to science and business. It is a shelter to both brain and heart, where each feeds on the other. It is deeply grounded despite the flash, and this irony is what makes Mumbai different.

Until next time.

I think and I think and I think, I’ve thought myself out of happiness a million times, but never once into it. <Jonathan Safran Foer>

Thoughts can lead you to places, afar, unknown and unexpected. As I write this, I recall Joseph Nguyen’s definition of a thought: energetic mental raw materials which we use to create everything in the world.

The thing that is astonishing is, as you start dwelling on the thought, you start ‘thinking’, and thinking, as one would suppose it to connect with the inner self, actually drives one away from the very inner core. This notion challenges the fundamental construct that has been commonly interpreted all this time. Thinking creates barrier between oneself and universe.

Thought, as Joseph says in his book ‘Don’t believe everything you think’, has some unknown source, name it universe, for the sake. We might have no control over it. Yet, dwelling on the thought, or ‘thinking’, is an absolute act of ‘choice’, and very much under control of ourselves. Easier said than done, is it?

But the ‘choice’ part cannot be conflicted. Initially, it indeed is a choice, and as we keep making the wrong choices, a long chain of thoughts is built before it is too late and we lose the power to choose. It all boils down to ‘mindset’. The shift in mindset can be exponentially helpful to change one’s life, and might as well be sourced through ‘thoughtlessness’.

But how?

Indulge in a morning ritual that allows you to be with yourself for some time. Let the thoughts flow, let them come and go. Pop and disappear, without dwelling on it. Meditation is one. However, there is an extension, easier to do that I have figured out.

When you travel in that rickshaw for your office in the morning, or stand in queue at the bus stop, do not consume any kind of content, and let the thoughts be. Watch the bikers making way by stomping on footpaths, wearing fancy helmets, people opening their shops and priests performing morning rituals in the roadside temples. Observe and do nothing. This practise helps in being present, in the very moment. Isn’t thoughtlessness a synonym of being in the present? Something that we indeed are taught in all the books and banters?

As Dicken Bettinger rightfully said: “We are ever only one thought away from peace, love and joy – which comes from a state of no thought.”

Until next time.

From May, to now October, the month of Diwali, time flies faster after college. Juggling between my work and personal life, I have tried to preserve my hobbies that keep me sane, reading is one of them.

Myths = Mithya is one such interesting book I came across. How beautifully the cultures historically have been intertwined and co existed, all on the basis of small stories and folklores. This tells the immense power that storytelling has, and while it might have changed its forms in this day and age, it is equally relevant and thriving.

As a child, we are shown the softer aspects of religion and worship. Mostly because questioning them is not desirable, curiosity is not pushed enough. There is a worldly limit, within which the families want us to stay. Neither beyond to reach ascetism, nor too within to be entirely aloof. Both the aspects are condemned in hushing tones by ‘society’, and rightfully so. The balance majorly, thankfully and successfully prevails.

Another viewpoint might just be how the darker truths are embraced by us from a young age, making their way through these softer aspects, which is equally important. An example could be the stories of aggressive forms of our gods, be it Maa Bhadra Kaali, or Bhadrakaal. The usage of ‘Bhadra’ itself signifies the justified, positive and much necessary aggression against the negativity. The teachings are plenty.

Another interesting thing is that the concept of evil does not exist in Hinduism. It is mostly prevalent in monotheistic religions. There are asuras and rakshasas. Asuras are in constant tussle with devas and live below the earth. Rakshasas co exist with humans on planet earth. They are intelligent and determined, which makes them boon – worthy, but more often, their destructive selves take over which requires intervention of god.

The creator of world, is Brahma, but as per the book, in the scriptures, he is the first one to be simply made conscious and aware about his surroundings. He is made aware about the goddess. And from him other creations stem. This might as well indicate towards existence of someone before him, who made him conscious and caused him to create. The scriptures also indicate the existence of many brahmas of different worlds, which had existed before this world and many contemporary brahmas which exist in parallel worlds. The possibilities are endless. So are the interpretations.

Until next time.

“Zindagi ki is daud me, daud kar karna kya hai,

Agar yahi jeena hai, toh phir marna kya hai?”

Vidya Balan’s voice humming these lines rings loudly in my ear everytime I visit a local train station or spend a long time facing rejections from the auto drivers post 11 hour office turmoil. The crowd, the suited ‘hujoom’, wanting to rush back to their homes, families or personal spaces, where they can cope up with what happened today, and get ready to face tomorrows.

I too, very convieniently, knowingly, somewhat unwillingly, have become a part of this crowd. For the good or for the better, time will tell. I too wake up early, wear my ‘work – casuals’, hop onto an auto in a hurry and join Mumbai in its daily routine. Slogging till 7-8 pm, and coming back to my space, with nothing but sleep left in my body, I sit at my balcony to look out for peace.

No wonder, at weekends, the roads to hill stations nearby have no space to keep one’s feet.

You see, that is what adulting does. It comforms to these norms and rigid lifestyles. People spend years and years hoping that they will figure it all out someday, and it becomes an endless race. Adulting is not ‘settling’ once and for all, it, perhaps, is more about acknowledging internal reality, accepting the external reality, and finding a way that builds on evolving both of them.

What if someone were to break it off, to breathe more, yet, work towards goals, dreams and aspirations! What if this norm was never set in the first place? Democracy is a relatively newer concept, hence, I have my own apprehensions looking back at history to find more breathers. But what if there was a time where adulting was defined differently? Too ideal to pursue, is it?

Sitting at marine drive, as the gushes of sea air hit the face, these questions pop up in majority of minds, with their legs dangling about the vast, infinite ocean. Debates and conversations amalgamate into promises and dreams, and then, they get up, since sitting far too long at night may make them late to jobs next day.

“Jo apni aakhon me hairaniya leke chal rahe ho, toh zinda ho tum.

dilon me tum apne, betaabiyan leke chal rahe ho, toh zinda ho tum.”

(Javed Akhtar)

A potion to think?

Until next time.

Bidding adieu to Varanasi, and my two months of stay in this city.

Considering myself to have a considerable understanding of writing, poetry and philosophy, I used to wonder everyday, what is it in this city that has enticed romanticist poets and writers so dearly, across decades and centuries? I could find no trace of that poetic nuance in even the slightest offering the city gives, and yet, as I bid farewell, I find the fog fading away.

Varanasi is unusual. It has survived historical setbacks and embraced futuristic advancements, without losing the essence of being what it is – ‘Varan-asi’ – a city streched from river ‘Varuna’, to the last constructed bank on the river Ganges- ‘Assi’.

Magnificent events that impacted ethnic and religious landscapes fell within these boundaries of the two rivers, from mentions in Sanatan Vedas dating thousands of years ago to the first sermon of peace by Buddha, the city is also home to a significantly large Muslim population.

But what is unusual, you might ask?

The relation of the city with death:

Ancient scriptures described the holy city to be a place where death frees humans from the continuous loop of life and death, towards nirvanam or moksh. Hence, from around Indian subcontinent, people come here nearing death or are brought for last rites post death.

There are even shelter homes, where people spend their last few years of life with the sole purpose of breathing their last in the holy city. So when you travel on roads, seeing death processions towards the auspicious ghat of Ganges is a common sight, which an outsider might find slightly aversive, for the lack of a better word, but is absolute routine to the local people of Varanasi.

Every year, after a month of the festival of Holi, a unique festival of Holi is celebrated on the bank of Manikarnika Ghat, the place of nirvanam, from the ashes of remains of ‘chitaa’ or funeral pyre, participated in huge numbers by not just the sadhus, but even the common man.

There is also an infamous event in one of the days of Navdurga – festival of goddess, celebrated near the very ghat, attended by the respected whos and whoms of the city, where prostitutes dance their hearts out whole night, praying that they never get a life like this in next lives they have to come back on earth.

Unusual, isn’t it?

What it reminds me is of what Lord Shiva, the god of destruction, stands for. How every practice here, is an ode to death. An ode to a desirable end, but also a hopeful beginning. Now I know, why so many philosophers and writers dug deep into Varanasi, in an attempt to understand the layers that superimposed over one another and shaped the city making it identifiably unique and auspicious, to know how it survived against the supreme power of time.

Visiting might not help figure this out, as much as living for sometime here may.

Until next

Not more can one wish for ‘being independent’ and ‘all on own’.

As I sit in my balcony, on a hot Sunday afternoon, after a massive power outrage stretched since last night; I try to find comfort in a warm gush of air that too seems to have lost its way. I have yet not mustered the courage to start with pending weekend-domestic work rituals, and my mind is wheeling onto the wagon of ‘whys’ and ‘what-ifs’ that have tagged along in this journey of adulting. Yes, adulting; enforced upon me by my first-time job and living completely on my own.

There are good days when I feel like I truly am the driver of my life. But in this initial, hectic stage, there are also evenings lying in bed with utmost bewilderment and despair. The latter case rests on physical and mental fatigue, which instills loneliness. The nature of my job is such that there is no office work, hence no office colleagues, and hence, no social circle one forms in a new job. The classic case of ‘you are truly on your own, even when your introverted self wants to socialise, you have nowhere to go to’.

Memories of college in Shillong serve as a temporary escape occasionally. More than often, We don’t value things when we have them, do we? The loneliness bothers me mostly when I come back early, or when I am not at the best of my health. I remember home, and how we take ‘homeliness’ for granted. How we grow up, little saplings into young trees. Seemingly ‘ready’ and ‘expected’ to face the storms. Maybe it’s for the good. Maybe, the more we live in comfort zones, the more we hamper our ability to outgrow ourselves every spring of life and bear fruits.

Considering this is going to instil the much anticipated confidence and skillset, I am taking one day at a time.

Until next,