Ever wondered what it is about the human heart that loves the sensuality of the antique? That makes you feel warm when you run your hands over a family heirloom belonging to a branch of the family tree unseen? That makes you smell the flowers that grew by the road you walked home from school?
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Is it the promise of the future? That something will stay on even when you are gone? Or the glimpse of the past, despite the fact that all you may remember is a withered face in an old photoframe?
Or perhaps, it is the sense of entering someone else's world. A world where you are accepted because by bequeathing the heirloom, you have been given a promise that you are always accepted here. That it is your gate pass into a place where no one will judge you. Bcoz no one lives there anymore.
As i tried on my mother's engagement sari for my college farewell and looked into the mirror, I was a little breathless. I wondered how my mother must've felt, and somehow her sentiments of apprehension, which she probably will never speak to her daughter of for fear of seeming not 'a mom since birth' and breaking the essential distance for future parenting, those very sentiments seem to have been woven into the pink silk and the even now brilliant silver threadwork. I felt closer to her knowing that at my age she too had done this - looked into a mirror and realised...
..that she was, like i am now, 21 year old.Tuesday, February 27, 2007
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been reading anne rice vampire chronicles. sounds like an interesting pastime, may consider it as an after life hobby. but the point is what till then? two of my best friends - call em d.c. and a.s. (as is NOT me!) - insist they want to die by the time they're 35 bcoz thats all the time they need or want. i could say its a fear of old age's dependencies that causes these independent souls to make such one way pacts with god but its not quite that. for some reason we think there isnt enough to do or that can be done in an entire lifetime.
that perhaps only one dream can be fulfilled per lifetime.
and my question is, why?
why can't i be the corporate girl for 10 years, then write a book, then go to egypt and retire in italy in a small cottage upon cobbled streets? why do we need immortality?
the bhagvad gita and most epics suggest that earlier human lifespans used to extend beyond 200 years. over time it came down to a lil over 100 until now it hovers around 70.
why? biological? perhaps not. perhaps psychologically we tell ousrselves that once kids have left the nest, its time to become the retired couple, to relax and not aspire anymore? if so many diseases are psychosomatic, why not aging?
why do we define our lives by what we achieve? i remember sitting at a dubai airport emirates lounge (our flight was delayed by 10 hours) and just chatting up a 40 odd pakistani doctor settled in the americas. we talked for hours, told each other stories of each others countries.
i have always felt that's what its supposed to be like to live as part of humanity. to meet talk discuss swap stories. then go elsewhere and do the same.
new job, new people, new customs, a fresh mind.
perhaps i still have a bit of the pre-eveolutionary nomad in me, god knows.
goa does that to you. it makes you feel like you are a part of this pulsating throng of holidaymakers.
is it so strange that multiple personality disorder is so prevelant? we insist on finding ourselves. well maybe we are many people. and that isnt acceptable by society. so we limit ourself to a consistent personality. contradicting people are crazy or confused. not really. they're more in touch with themselves then people who live by the same set of principles all their lives.
i once asked my dad if his values were the same as his parents. he said no. so why the, i replied, do you expect mine to be the same as yours? its the only time he couldn't answer me.
i wish he had.Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Labels: commercialisation of spirituality, yoga, yoga fashion
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I could try and compend all the articles i just read on the commecialisation of yoga. or you could just google it yourself and see prove that god is ubiquitious even on the internet as millions of bytes shoot though our gigabyte lan cables bringing flash videos of comments of people who lost upto 10 kgs in a week due to their rs 1000 per session personal spiritual consultants.
and he's helping alleviate poverty. millions are earned by gucci, vogue and agoy accessories (its yoga spelt backwards...genius huh?) and spent by madonna, liz taylor, clintons etc. on the same. meanwhile in india, yoga is in vogue with the young due to the west. 
and here's the irony - the corporate world - the ones with the actual need for a way to quell the executive's road rage that promises all his juniors have hell at work before he even walks out of his car at 9 am - have no access or time for yoga.Friday, February 16, 2007
so here's the thing. either im a sore loser. or the rules of debating changed somewhere and just got included in the all encompassing axiom of 'cool rules'.
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anyway the title was the motion of the house, and the entire audience got swayed by a guy who said that he was free bcoz he had the gall to get on the stage in torn denims and a coke bottle when all others were too tight to get out of their uniforms.
the interjection went as follows(asked by yours truly) - if i want to get on a bike at 10 pm and go to goa like the guys in my college do, i cant. rape stats etc. so how am i getting my freedom of choice?
his answer - im sorry but you have to have the conviction not to believe the newspaper and take the risk. audience claps (don't ask!)
when he sits back down i ask him if he believed his answer. he says - you mean a girl alone on a bike. yes, say i. his brilliant chauvanistic reply - but girls dont usually want to do that.
ladies and gmen, freedom of the individual is more than what we debated. if the audience can get swayed so easily, what ids the point of them having the freedom of choice? if the lady judge was so flattered by the pre-debate flirting, is she not infact chained by her insecurity as a woman?
debate is about conviction and audience appeal. yes. ill grant you that. but are we so desperate for acceptance that we pick a man who chooses to exhibit a sense of pompous confidence over 9 other contenders who had content that was actually making sense?
seeing the soaring levels of insecurity in america, is it surprising america voted for george bush?
how long will our freedom of thought be chained by our sense of identities and our need for a hero who will glorify us because he makes us believe that just by sitting and nodding at our televisions back home when we are made 'proud soldiers of an anti terrorism war'.
excuse me sir, i think you're sitting on something - oh there it is - your self respect.
how long has it been there, zombie?Thursday, February 15, 2007
its been a year. i came across a blog while searching for material on a debate. remembered i had my own. anyway, here goes my second attempt to keep a blog. between a digital diary (basically a password protected word document) and a diary (more like souveneir file with 20 odd diary entries) and this blog, its doesnt bode well for my future biographers' research assistants.
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so now im wondering - is the above paragraph too pompous? what will i sound like to someone who visits my page? is it a representation of what i am? is any blog? or are they like chatroom ids?
i once read this thing that said, "you are not what you think you are. you are not even what others think you are. you are what you think others think you are."
so am i.. aw forget it.
im trying too hard. don't wait up for my third.