Back In Mumbai, For Good

Yeah!

Thus Spake Pratucius

Sometimes there just isn't any use of fighting the darkness around you. You have to accept it and step into it. The more you seek lights around you to help you, the more you will stumble and feel pain. It's better to see the light within and let that guide your way.

Feminism

Interesting article this. Any comments?

Not So Sweet Nothings

I took some pics on the way to Mumbai last Tuesday. For those of you want a minor overgead guided tour of Mumbai and Bangalore at night, check it out.

Back in Bangalore for now. Coordinating with movers & packers and others to clear up all the stuff. Maybe I should organize a garden sale instead of giving away stuff for free :)

Counting these last few days. Quite literally. It's a lil relaxed at work (which probably makes it worse!!!) and I feel quite disconnected from the place and from people in general actually. Not a feeling that I am unfamiliar with, don't like it too much either.

The next one year is gonna be bloody tough. Looking forward to a planned trip in May to Ladakh.

Till then, bweeeee :(

IN Mumbai

.. is also incidentally a channel that I worked with, not too long ago. I continue to be associated with them in ways that I shall not elaborate for now.

I am in Mumbai. Till Sunday... I take a flight back to Bangalore, for what will be my last two weeks as a resident of Bangalore. On April 2nd, I return to Mumbai - lock, stock, barrel and whatever else manages to creep in.

The past 10 days or so in Mumbai have been good. Incredibly good. Catching up with my old crazy work schedules hasn't been as painful as I initially envisaged. Am posting from office right now :) Back to 12 hour working weekdays and 3-4 hour working weekends. Back to long discussions in Cafe Coffee Day with Arya. Back to Prategy (now that one needs an update!)

Need to wrap stuff up back in Bangalore, not gonna relish that particularly but hey, what's gotta be done has to be done.

Life is like that :) Take it. You don't have a choice of leaving it.

Wake Up Call

I had just finished meditating when the first flashes of lightning lit up the room. For a surreal moment, I was confused. Where was I? Mumbai or Bangalore? Maybe I had teleported myself? Gee! I must be powerful >:) When the familiar shapes of my room stared at me dimly, I was at peace.

Today morning, I got sms from colleagues and friends - blaming me for bringing tthe rains from Bangalore to Mumbai. Five months ago, people in Bangalore blamed me for bringing the floods there. Life has come full circle, I guess :) Wonder which tangent I shall follow now.

Riding in the rickshaw, I watched the riot of colours on the trees and I wrote this.

My post on detachment seems to have created some unrest among certain sections of my readers. Someones thought that I was alluding to a person(s) stabbing me in the back. Unfortunately, I was alluding to fate and not people. As usual, my ambiguous style of communication has caused some room for discontent. Fun.

There's a major problem with the Hutch network. If you are a Hutch customer in Mumbai, your sms to a Hutch number in Bangalore won't be recieved by the recipient (who else? duh!) However, vice versa works. All other networks in the country and internationally are able to message Hutch Bangalore. This problem has been happening since yesterday afternoon and still not resolved. The best part is, both parties are blaming each other and tell me to contact the other - claiming it's not their fault. Now, that's what you call a 'Short Service Message'!

Their IPO will be interesting to watch, now that ORASCOM has been declared a security risk. I am sure that the smart back office boffins will come up with a workaround for this. India will have to tread carefully lest it is accused of taking a cue from the Dubai Ports brouhaha in USA.

And life goes on!

Back to Mumbai

Will be here for a week or so. Will need to return to Bangalore to shift the stuff, vacate the house and transition some responsibilities. The 're-transfer' is effective April 1. Apt, eh? :)

Wrote this just now.

On detachment and other things

Every minute for the past nine months has been a constant battle in which every day that the battle was prolonged was a victory for me. Blows rained incessantly, rising and ebbing with the tide, each blow taking its toll and drawing blood. I took them like a man and I knew I would win.

My optimism, however, was not shared, and now I suddenly find myself on my knees, cruelly stabbed in the back. Everything that I have done in these months has come to naught and I am left with pieces of life that can be never put together again.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have lost this battle. I have lost precious few but even amongst all of them, this one broke my back the worst; the taste of defeat is the most bitter.

Even as I gather myself and plunge into life anew, I realize how pointless it was to try and change destiny. I thought I could, and for a long time I did. But now I must withdraw and let fate take its own path. I have realized once again that I cannot and should not try to change someone else’s destiny. I should not take on their sorrows and hurt on myself and though I did this to hasten someone’s spiritual progress, if the other does not believe, then all I will ever get is a knife in the back that pierces through my heart.

I was discussing this with Arya in the morning and we were wondering together why it is so, when the topic came around to detachment.

Cliched as it may sound, that is the answer.

Detachment.

The process of recognizing destiny – individual and collective and letting life take its own course, (for after all, everything is pre-ordained?) and ultimately letting things be.
Of performing one’s duty to oneself and Him (both being the same) by being good and doing the right thing (one may call it Dharma) constantly without waiting for the rewards or fruits therein (this is the path that hurts most)

This world, as we perceive and sense it, is nothing but a cosmic creation, an illusion that’s waiting to be broken. No one will break it for me but me, alone. Indeed no one can be expected to understand what I go through, save my Guru and a precious few soul mates (not necessarily lovers). While what I perceive and sense is a microcosm of the whole, nevertheless it is a world in itself. The whole is nothing but the collective of billions of such worlds put together, entwined and engrossed in an intricate dance where paths cross from time to time.

This, therefore, is the path I must take. Unbelievable as it may sound, this is what I have always believed in from the time I have had a conscious memory. Life till date has been a denial of this ultimate truth. I do not regret the time lost, I believe that life has only hammered these teachings into me over the past 28 years. But if I do not take heed of this fact now, I will be the fool.

This is also my most personal post to date; I supplemented it with a spoken version of this post. (To play in your browser, just click on the link. To download, right click and 'save link as')

Depressed

One more.

My Grain

It's killing me as I type this post. I have no clue where it came from. Tanith, as I used to call her, has wrapped herself lovingly around my poor head and is squeezing me gently in, what I call, the slow-death-dance.

Okay, I guess I am being a lil too macabre now :)

Had an official do on Saturday night. Ended up visiting a pub (Opus) with some colleagues afterwards. The band was pretty okay and were playing some originals. I actually managed to like them! We were there till quite late and I ended up reaching home only at 1.30 am. Waking up at 4.30 am to catch the early 6.50 am flight to Mumbai was a challenge. The taxi driver turned out to be a friend and we sped through the morning mist to reach the airport in 20 minutes. The joys of zero traffic!

It was a business trip and I returned on Wednesday early morning. A good break, all in all. I was at the CentreOne Mall in Vashi on Sunday evening when the 'Indian Idol' contestants landed up there for a promotion. Within minutes the mall was so crowded that it reminded me of the rush-hour local trains. The contestants belted out a few popular songs and engaged in conversation with the crowd, who were absolutely enthralled and enchanted by this bunch of youngsters. So much that, these contestants were getting mobbed for photographs and autographs and everything else. I watched on in amusement, entertainment rules the Indian heart. And cricket, of course.

Bush and the good doctor have inked the deal, congrats! Whether this is a step forward or backward remains to be seen.

I am listening to Renaud Garcia-Fons right now. Admittedly, it's quite soothing.

A couple of weeks ago, I purchased the Zoom 707 II effects processor for the guitar. Three steps to beat the weekend boredom - Hook on the pedal, Crank up the volume and Jam! I need the Morley Classic Wah pedal next, so if you are coming to India from the USA (for example), let me know :)

Hopefully I will be going to Mumbai again next week. If that happens, yaiy! If not, well, what the hell... life goes on :)