White at work

Dream catcher!

My dream catcher is catching beautiful dreams in this snowy winter!

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep...


-Robert Frost

Wanderer!

Few months back I left Paris with two big suitcases in the same way as I reached the city 4 years back. As I was packing I realized that my wardrobe have completely changed, I was not carrying much things that were with me when I left India. Being a wandered this scares me a lot. Recently was talking to someone who left his home country few months back, his move may not be as dramatic as me, he can still go back to his country and see the house and things he grew up with but he still left something he was very passionate about. Recently I lost few things that I dreamt of having for a longer time in my life and realized that it doesn't matter how big or small the thing is, just the concept of losing is very painful. Beginning a wanderer, I cannot drag the whole world with me..can I? but as a wanderer I enjoy meeting new people and I was surprised to see how sensitive and insensitive people can be in reacting to such losses. some people's consolation can added more pain and some were really sweet. And I still enjoy being a wanderer as I can get to do many 'first things' in my life, like having my christmas tree at home. Thanks Jo!

Soria

Yesterday during one of the random reading in the my meditation center library, I discovered this Spanish poet Antonio Machado. He got my attention by the following lines.

People possess four things
that are no good at sea:
anchor, rudder, oars
and the fear of going down.

Hmm! I should stop using rudder and oars in my sea, obviously it is not working. Later I googled him and found some very cheesy poems (I don't know if it is a good poem and lost its charm in translation) about a place I visited in Spain called Soria. I have very nice memories from this place, specially I enjoyed that snow in the summer, in mountains near Soria. Back to my oars, I am in a sea and cant use my oars, How should I move on in my life? I got the same question in my mind, when I was new to Paris, I didn't know how to use maps. In India I was guided by random people in every street corners of my life. Then when I started being comfortable to navigate around people in Paris, I thought I have mastered the art of navigation in the 'western world'. Now in Cambridge, with a GPS mobile and a Sat Nav, I am still lost. Struggling to read the non-existing sign language of people, sometimes misuderstaning a cultural difference as a joke. Standing in vain to be led by someone around this beautiful country side, I felt Antonio Machado gave me an answer to the wanderer in me, to move on in my life!

Wanderer, your footsteps are
the road, and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind
one sees the path
that never will be trod again.

Paa the Movie!

I told you... bollywood is very famous here, yesterday bollywood movie Paa made headlines in Cambridge news. Part of this movie was shot in Cambridge, specially focusing on this grass hopper clock which is in the heart of Cambridge. I am very curious to see this movie but I hope it is not a remake of Brad Pitt's Benjamin Button, that movie made me sick . Also, I was shocked to read the quote of Dr.Taylor, who is making a replica of this clock, "The fearsome beast which drives the clock indicates that time is often our enemy, not our friend". But, time is always been my good friend, It is a very big healer, it shows me the meaning of all the tears I shed , it takes all the pains and shapes into practical wisdom. After losing all the badminton mixed double match, again time gives me hope that I will get better with time. I have only one complaint with that beast that drives the clock, it makes time too slow. I wish I can gather all the 27 years of experiance and turn 60 next week. Cambridge News.

Happiness and Love

I have this horrible habit of reading book just randomly, just opening a random page and start reading from there, mostly philosophy books. When I was reading one such book over the weekend I got to read this thought provoking and very comforting lines "Like love, Happiness is a journey not a destination". I grew up hearing, you have to do this and that to make the family happy and at the end of the day I made no one happy. But with friends this happiness is just there, we don't have to do this and that to be happy in a friendship. I guess the same is true for love, when we feel the love, we want to make it grow and we have a defined formula that we have to do this and that to make it grow, may be the bollywood type of expression is one such attempt to make this feeling grow? More over, we even define the success and failure of this feeling. How funny is that. Yesterday was nothing extraordinary happened, but felt that the day was filled with love and happiness. A love of a friend to his friend and his little attempt to stop him smoking. Love and Happiness are such little things and not in a big fairy tale. I also got to do a random read of my favourite philosopher, very close to what I was trying to write in this blog and this cartoon, if I say Live love and laugh as a key to happiness, many of my friends will accept with that chicken and add the fourth one :-)

What a thing is relationship, and how easily we fall into that habit of a particular relationship, things are taken for granted, the situation accepted and no variation tolerated; no movement towards uncertainty, even for a second, entertained. Everything is so well regulated, so made secure, so tied down, that there is no chance for any freshness, for a clear reviving breath of the spring. This and more is called relationship. If we closely observe, relationship is much more subtle, more swift than lightning, more vast than the earth, for relationship is life. Life is conflict. We want to make relationship crude, hard, and manageable. So it loses its fragrance, its beauty. All this arises because one does not love, and that of course is the greatest thing of all, for in it there has to be the complete abandonment of oneself.

--J Krishnamurti.

Bollywood ...

Just a sample of the bollywood I was talking about, such a big exaggeration of simple attraction :-) I am not sure if we want to make the simple things to look extraordinary or the feeling is extraordinary and we mess it up in search of right words! It happens only in bollywood and for some reason people like to see it this way! Surprised to see the growing popularity of bollywood outside India! You may say that the lyrics can be excused, as poetry is always a bit of an exaggeration... to add more spices, the second bit of the song in more westernize dress is happening in the rebirth! Same people get attracted at first sight in their rebirth.. In reality..How long an attraction can last?