Coming To Terms

How does one deal with death? I have been asking myself this question for a long time now and I do have some answers. They are kinda foggy and I am writing this post to try and sort it out.

Given my belief in Indian/Hindu philosophy and its underlying principles, I am completely convinced that death is only part of a cycle – a cycle that one breaks by achieving moksha/nirvana…

So when someone I know dies, I tell myself that the person has only discarded his/her present form and returned to God, maybe for a brief period or for ever, depending on his/her karmic balance. My understanding of Adwaita and the concept of ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ in its entirety gives me enough reasons not to grieve. Instead, I could interpret it as a reason to rejoice that the ‘departed’ soul is one step closer to achieving its ultimate goal.

Yet, I do grieve. There is still some pain when a near/dear one dies (to put it bluntly). And it overshadows the supposed feeling of joy by far. There still remains the ‘longing’ for that person – even if he/she wasn’t really close to me physically. There is still a small void that is created; that takes a long time to fill. Sometimes it’s never filled, only hidden.

Maybe, I need to have more faith, more conviction in my own beliefs, in what I believe to be true and those principles which I verily espouse and swear by. It’s not the toughest thing in the world, yet there is a considerable amount of ‘self realization’ that needs to be done before I truly achieve that state.

I couldn’t quite make it for the trek to Makalidurg. I woke up on Saturday morning with a heavy head. To add to it, I guess it had rained and the route would be a tad slippery/dangerous. So I decided to chuck it.

I guess there’s some jinx on my travel outside Bangalore at the moment. Am making an attempt to break it this weekend, let’s see if I succeed.

Running Around

Just got back home.

Sometime last week, I was informed that I would be heading the 'Jal' team for our company's cultural festival. The entire operations (for my company) in India has been split into 5 teams basically.. named after the 5 elements. So each tieam has roughly 500 members in it. And since we are very much in the BPO space; mostof te team members (especially the enterprising ones) work night shifts.

So right now I am totally caught in identifying key players from the various processes/projects in the organization and getting them to invite participation from the team members for various events like dance, music etc etc. Harks back to college days.....

It's a lot of back breaking work - beginning from branding the team to getting posters etc all over the place.. Oh well.

But tomorrow (Saturday) I go on a trek to Makalidurg!!

Anti-Climax

The Great Kerala trip never happened. I severely miscalculated the traffic situation in Bangalore and left only at 1815 for a 25 km ride that took two hours to complete. I managed to run into every single red signal on the way – two of which I broke with the permission of the traffic cop. My friend braved the rain and the jams and my endless jabbering to reach Yeshwantpur Jn. albeit 13 minutes late – and I missed the train.

I called up my parents and they didn’t sound surprised in the least bit. I offered to take a bus to Kerala but they politely told me to stay put. So that’s what I did.

I consoled my friend and we decided to go to Legends of Rock at Koramangala. It’s a damn good place (thanks Sprechen!) and we had a great time watching countless rock videos. For some strange reason, the waiter brought us ‘Tangdi Kebab’ for starters – which we hadn’t ordered. This wouldn’t be noteworthy, were it not for the fact that we were offered ‘Tangdi Kebab’ on two occasions before this at Ebony and some other place, we had been to. Maybe there’s something about me that makes restaurateurs want to feed me with Tangdi Kebab. Nevertheless, we had a ball. I offered to ride back and managed to do a pretty good job of it. So much that I ended up riding the bike on Saturday and Sunday as well.

While riding the bike I felt the acute need to shield my face from the dust and grime on the roads. That’s when I realized that I better buy my long-cherished pair of Aviators. I started off by looking for it in Indira Nagar, but didn’t find them. Ended up in Landmark at the Forum mall in Koramangala. The guy at the counter was a well-dressed man in his early fifties. I asked him for Ray-Ban…he still had a questioning look on his face. When I mentioned ‘Aviator’ he positively lit up. He started showing the various models that he had. There wasn’t much to choose from – I had kinda pre-decided the exact one I would go for. The guy said “Aviators are conventional models, sir. You could look at the trendy ones as well if you like. These suit your face very well”. I told him that I was planning to buy a bike. “In that case, sir, pleas buy a Bullet!”. I smiled and told him that I was planning to go in for a Thunderbird. “Excellent choice sir, it’s a damn good bike!”. And that settled it.


We went to Bay-Leaf for lunch (Thanks Sprechen, once again). I couldn’t stop drooling over the Aviators and neither could the waiters. One of them (who was attending to my table) even knew the exact price and then he asked me which bike I planned to buy. Upon hearing my answer, he nodded in appreciation and approval.

Thankfully, he didn’t serve me Tangdi Kebab.

Good Deed of the day: Helped an old Mallu lady overcome her fear of using an escalator at the Forum Mall :) :)