The Certainty of Uncertainty

Four days of braving cyclonic storms, tornadoes, torrential rains and finally flooding, dredged out the philosopher-in-hiding.





Image courtesy - http://field4.co.uk/protools.html

What is the first thought that occurs to you when you come to know about a natural/manmade calamity? It’s a feeling of relief, right? That comforting thought that it wasn’t you grieving the loss of a limb or someone you loved deeply. Saying a silent prayer of thanks that it was someone unknown who will be dealing with grief.
 

It’s a little later you start feeling sorry for the futures lost, luck that chose to play truant, musing on the what-ifs that condemn the afflicted to a lifetime of remorse.

Call me a sadist, but I often imagine myself as the victim. I wonder, in the face of adversity, will I be the one who stays back to help others or simply run for my dear life, putting my conscience on mute. Too selfish to care about others, worried sick about my well-being, my high ideals abandoning me the moment I needed them the most. It scares me to know that there might be a frightened, hysterical coward waiting to come out at the hint of calamity.

How many times have we dealt with tragedy without even feeling a hint of resentment for someone else’s normalcy? Battling the “why me”, “what did I do to deserve this” laments! Blaming our friends and family for not being kind enough, understanding enough and time stretched to pay heed to our distress?

Grief makes us selfish.

They say, it is during our darkest moments we come to face with blinding clarity. Just when we are about to lose it all, do we see truth that we had been seeking all our lives. Realizing, we wasted our precious years confusing the inconsequential for the consequential, putting up with crap when we should have walked away from it! Foolishly thinking that happiness lay in a bigger bank balance, swankier cars, posh vacations, when fulfilment was waiting to be found in the simplest pursuits…Working too hard, pursuing goals that had no meaning and wilfully ignoring things that mattered the most…

Regretting that I did not have the courage to live a life true to myself and not what others expected from me.

Wishing, I had the courage to express what I felt and devoted more time to my loved ones…

If only I had let myself to be happier.
Why do we relegate happiness to the past or postpone it to the future and choose to ignore the present?
 

Isn’t it ironic, that it’s during the worst in our life, do we realize, what we were taking for granted, and dismissing as mundane was actually a blessing we were turning a blind eye to?

Happiness is an elusive bitch.

The human mind works in mysterious ways. It constantly yearns for things that will make it happy. And when it finally gets what it wants, the mind moves on to the next best thing. When we are home, we yearn to travel. When we travel, we yearn for the familiarity of our bed. When we are young, we hanker for the One to settle down with and spend the rest of our lives, happily ever after. In the happily -ever -after phase, we want to be untethered to experience the life we gave up at the altar of love.

There’s something very unromantic about possession. The hunt is always more exciting than the kill. As long as it adorns a show-window, somebody else’s arms, is on somebody else’s bed – our heart desires and obsesses over it. Life becomes a series of ifs. If I get this promotion, I will have a better sense of self-worth. If I get that woman, I will truly be happy. If I get that dress, I will look beautiful. But it doesn’t work that way, does it! Your mind continues looking for excuses to be content and happiness continues to be an elusive bitch.

The woman of your dreams turns out to be an attention seeking shrew who leaves you drained with her constant demands. That promotion turns out be a nightmare and you realize you don’t have time for your family anymore.

Familiarity turns even the most beautiful into the ordinary. What looked like the Garden of Eden from a distance turns out to be just a grassy patch with a lone apple tree.

We start taking the splendour, the excitement for granted. The euphoria of getting what you always wanted lasts a few months before we start getting used to it.

Getting used to, is the worst thing that can happen to us. Taking her kindness, his unflinching friendship, her love for granted. Sadly, the only time we realize how much it meant to us is when we are about to lose it.

The thought of letting go brings out the worst in us. We cling, we claw, we threaten, we beg, we dissolve into tears. We become pathetic versions of ourselves.

Isn’t it why, happiness lies only in the past and future, while the present is just a chore to be dispensed with! We realize the magic of the moment, only when we consign it to our memories. Nostalgia is a seductive mistress. It’s tough to let go of her.

No wonder, happiness continues to elude us. It’s because we make a habit of it and then start complaining of boredom. Happiness is not a milestone to be covered. It’s savouring what we have been blessed with.

The truth is, there is no ideal man, love or life –it’s what we make of what we get.

Ideal is a state of mind and not material things.

To a Sklylark: “We look before and after, and pine for what is not; our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught” - Shelley

A-musing gets a new life

I am writing from Brisbane, my new home for the next few years. Home has suddenly become an ambiguous term. My pen hovers uncertainly over the permanent address box. With permanence taking a long break, transience has become my reality.

The day we were moving out, our press-wala asks me – I heard you are leaving. Are you going back to your own desh?

A Bengali with no roots in West Bengal, I grew up in Delhi and spent the last eight years of my life in Gurgaon. The NCR is my desh and I’m now in videsh, feeling like an “Englishman in New York”. Taking in the unfamiliar faces and accents, straining to hear sounds of laughter, eyes caressing the beautiful river that runs through the city, hugging myself to keep warm as we take a midnight stroll without fear stalking our minds, a little worried that our streamlined, unchaotic existence in Brisbane will rob me off my inspiration to churn out satire....That I’ll no longer be able to work myself into an angered frenzy, spewing venom in the naive hope that my angst will miraculously change the world.

My organized mind feeds on the chaos that surrounds me.

The last few months, I have constantly been beseeched by the same question – so, how does it feel to be moving out? And my reaction was always the same. Silence. Because I had no words to describe the swirl of muddled up feelings. Of being unmoored from familiarity, anticipating alienation and loneliness, yet excited about a new innings in my life.

We never tire of complaining about the monotony of routine, but when change stares at us in the face, we are filled with confusion. Will I be able to make new friends? What if I don’t like it there! And most importantly, will I be inspired enough to write!

My blog is part of my life. I’d hate to let go of it so easily.

So, you will all have to put up with my transition, my mood swings as I search for a new identity.

We spent our Saturday with a lovely couple, their two dogs and a lazy cat, at their country home. Their house is a happy clutter, the kitchen counters overflowing with culinary experiments. They are grandparents but their sense of adventure is still intact. They grow their own fruits, vegetables, nuts and herbs, spending hours under the sun tending to them. Taking off for hikes with their pets and coexist happily with the wildlife that surrounds them. A kangaroo hopping past their gardens is everyday business for them. Gigantic spiders often take a pee break in their bathrooms.

It made me yearn for a life I’d be too scared to live.

It also made me realize that you have to let go to savour life that cannot be controlled.

P.S The Aussies can’t seem to get my name right. Suddenly I have become Swami Agnivesh’s favourite drink – Pee.

Life etc.

Courtesy : Wisie.com

Compassion and I have been best friends for as long as I can remember.  I was all of four when I tried to save half a dozen fish from drowning.  As I was engaged in the earnest endeavour, dragging them out of the school water tank with a stick, I fell in the pool of freezing water.  I was trying my best to drown when an insensitive lout of a school peon pulled me out.  Instead of being nominated for bravery awards and made to sit atop an elephant on Republic Day, I was taken to the Principal’s office.

Let me announce at the onset that this is a pointless post.  In fact I don’t even know what I am going to write about.  Aren’t there times when you venture out for a walk and have no idea where you are heading?  You just know you want to be outside, so you inhale the scent of the Hasnuhana trees, admire the striking couple that passes you by, pat the Labrador as it looks at you with those lugubrious eyes.  You don’t have to keep a tab on the kilometres you walk, no calories to burn, no destination to reach.  Aimlessness can be liberating - it frees you from expectations and you have no disappointments to fear.  I wish life could be like that.

Today I will let my thoughts meander.  I have no news to share, no point to make, I may not make you laugh, but I still invite you to join me on this journey.  It’s no fun being on your own. 

Nostalgia is a seductive mistress.  How often have we huddled together with friends and family and dipped into the vat of collective memories for some succour.  We laugh ourselves silly, sometimes blame each other for unspoken torment and invariably end up confessing our so called misdemeanours.  Like the time when my Dadu banned me from reading the Godfather and I still went ahead and read it. At thirteen when I tried shaping my eyebrows, I ended up snipping away half of it. For weeks I faced the world looking like Spock from Star Trek.  Every time Ma said No to me, I went ahead and did it.  They were my small victories and I cherished each one of them. 

I was always restless, I still am.  My daughter tells me she gets tired just looking at me.  I can’t sit still, I can rarely relax and always need something to keep me occupied.  I work myself to exhaustion and crib about it.  Is it because I am scared to face the eternal ‘what next’?  Is it because I have no clue what it’s going to be?  Of course I know what I will be eating for lunch and dinner for the next seven days – that’s how organized I am.  But I do wish that I could let go.  Surrender myself and let time take me wherever it wants to. Not be consumed with a sense of guilt about wasting it.