A Harmonious Discord

Dil gira dafatan!

2009-01-20T15:03:00.000-08:00

I have not written for a long time, something that I would attribute to my laziness rather than anything else. What forced me to write a few words here is the latest addition to my favourite songs 'dil gira kahi par dafatan'. I cannot describe its beauty in terms of the lyrics or the melody. The song is my new companion on my daily journeys to office, when the winter sun shines its feeble rays on the frosty grass and Glasgow slowly wakes up to its usual bustle.

Listen to this song and lose yourself. I have wished several times for the journey to be a bit longer and I don't have to wake up from my trance so soon. It should be the perfect song to listen to if you are going for a long drive under a starlit night. Try it!

A journey through dreamland

2008-06-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

After a long wait, I got a chance to go on a trip. And I did go. I would say this was a trip to the other world. Far away from humanity. A trip to Fort William was what the doctor had prescribed after my busy college schedule. This was my first trip to the Scottish Highlands. I was rewarded by a wealth of memories and feelings which I would treasure forever. BEAUTIFUL. i can say no more, cant describe the beauty, cant say anything more because that would spoil it.

On my way, I was penning my thoughts, giving words to what I felt. It worked out well then. But knew for sure that I wont able to recall any of them. I just have this feeling of numbness created b the beauty, the majesty that took my breath away.

"It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope
Which then turned into a quiet thought
Which then turned into a quiet word

Now we're back to the beginning
It's just a feeling and no one knows yet
But just because they can't feel it too
Doesn't mean that you have to forget
Let your memories grow stronger and stronger'
Til they're before your eyes
You'll come back when its over.... no need to say goodbye"

My journey to a wonder land was ushered in by this song. I remember losing myself in the clouds that came down to earth. I was in the middle of .... heaven or atleast the path that leads to it.

See, I told you dear reader, it would not make any sense if I start talking "mind". It is a language understood by very few. Coherence would be the last thing you would find.Thats why this blog is named harmonious dischord.

People say that when you die , you either go to heaven or hell or as Dante pictures it, limbo. If there is a heaven the path t it would be like the road I have travelled. I ve never seen a place so unpolluted by human proximity. I almost felt like going to the edge of the world. As the Caledonian sleeper chugged along my heart was filled with a throbbing pleasure.

I have never tasted the intoxication provided by liquor or opium. But I know now the joys that they give. NOW I know what keats felt. Yeah it is the same:

MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains.

If he could feel this listening to the song of a nightingale, a commoner has got every right to feel like I did during my journey. I know the bounds of exhilarated joy that would have made th poet pen those beautiful words. Alas! I am no wizard of words to open my heart and pour out what it feels like the poet did. Even if try , it would be a sad imitation. So I am settling for this blog. Here I can hide my words and ask for comments from a lost reader who from time time stumble upon my blogs as a result of an internet search. Let that be it.

Aap agar in dino yahan hote ...

2008-04-27T03:50:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in the library near a window preparing for the exams on Friday. I opened a music site and searched for something randomly and just bumped into to this song by Jagjit singh and Gulzar. Recently I had come across a reviewer who said that he loves gazals but not jagjit’s for the reason that all his songs sounded the same. But I would ask him a question. “Where else exactly would you find songs that soothe your pained heart?” Jagjit presents to you a masochistic pleasure by reminding what you have lost, what follies you committed and gifts you with daggers to prick your own heart.

I was listening to this song and exactly at that moment, I saw a father carrying his baby daughter on his shoulders and crossing the road. My thoughts returned to my greatest loss, my father.

It is a year since you are gone and I am far, far away here in another part of the world. But I still see you everyday and talk to you as you help me to cross this busy road.

Aap agar in dino yehan hote … Hum Zamin par bhala kahaan hote…

Eternal bliss at the Gurudwara...

2007-11-10T15:31:00.000-08:00

How to find God? This was the topic of debate among our flatmates today. I am not starting a philosophical debate by beginning on this note. I think yesterday I found God , no it was a goddess. She wore a white salwar Kameez and a dupatta. She said "aao beti..."

The reader can come to different conclusions after reading this. One, he or she may think that the Glasgow weather has loosened all the screws left in my brain or he /she may think that she actually got a "divya darshan". You are free to choose between the two. But i might be able to convince you.

My personal belief is that , if u are frantically searching for something or someone, the moment you get that coveted object, you can term it as the moment of enlightenement. Gautama Buddha got supreme knowledge, which he was searching for, sitting under the bodhi tree. My moment of supreme bliss came to me yesterday.

what I am trying to state here is that my experience could not be counted less though i am in no way trying to compare myself with such a great personality.

I was in search of something good to fill my stomach for the past one and a half months. We were all literally living on cornflakes and bread. I think some of us had nightmares n which we were strangled with rolls of bread and drowned in oceans of milk and cornflakes. We also had dreams in which plates of idli, dosa, samosas etc were waiting for us to be eaten. We found some consolation by adding lots of chilli and pepper powder to our pasta or noodles. Sometimes it became so spicy that we ate it with watering eyes and running noses.

Then came a day good fortune dawned on us. My flatmates and I went out to do one of those job searches by the time we were done with the chores, hunger caught up with us. We had no hope, it was a long way from where we stay. But God sent a thought to one of us that a Gurudwara is near and we set out , without any expectations. It was Diwali day.

Diwali at home would be a grand affair but here it was just another day. Previous night, we had talked about the boxes of sweets that would be stacked in our houses during diwali. We entered te Gurudwara with the sole expectation of getting a momentary relief from the onslaught of hunger. But the moment we got into the gurudwara, i saw the angel, clad in white. She said "aao beti" and welcomed me to rows of sweets and pakodas and lots of goodies. I have to say that it was one of the most wonderful moments in my life. You didnt expect anything and you got everything. I asked for a flower and you gave me the whole spring!!! thank you God, you rock!

We had our fill and obviously we couldnt eat everything taken and kept in the plates greedily. So we took some sweets home for the less fortunate Neena, who didnt come for the grand peet pooja. I have to say, after our arrival at Glasgow, there was never a moment this satisfactory in our lives. And when we were bursting with laddus, jelabis and barfis, another angel took her friend's seat and said "aao beti". We ran away from the spot!

But we got out of our place of enlightenment, looked back and screamed WE LOVE YOU. I am not exaggerating but have to say that we found eternal bliss in that house of God. I am coming to the discussion about finding God with which I started the blog. They say God can come in any shape and attire. I am sure that those who provided us food when we really were longing for it were no less than Gods. For us the aged Punjabi grandma who offered us food so lovingly was surely a goddess. We didnt pray anything there, but our sincere thanks were written on our happy faces and there were lots of good wishes left.

By the way we are planning to go there tommorow for the Langar.

Clueless in Caledonia!

2007-10-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

It is been a long while since I ve written something in this blog of mine. A lot has changed in my life since the last blog. Then I was in my motherland and now I am in another part of the world. I am in the midst of a dfferent culture, a different society and defenitely a different way of thinking. But I enjoy it. It seems to me as a great challenge.

I arrived here in Glasgow , friendless, with the objective of getting a masters degree. What can I expect? Its a new world. I can speak their language and also understand them, but I dont have anything else in common. But when I get to the flat arranged to stay, what do I find??? Three other mallus.... and on top of that a Bengali girl whom I ve trained at IMS for GRE as flatmates! What more culd I ask for. I was in a situation when I could have the cake and eat it too, with the icing and all.

And now about Malayalees... they are everywhere. Legends say that when Niel Armstrong landed on the moon, there was a nair's tea shop there selling chaya and parippuvada! So we are leading this existence which has not changed much from the one we were leading back in India. We blabber away in Mal except for the enlightened occassions we feel the necessity to speak in the local language( Its English here!)

And now taking you( the reader...waiting for you to read my blog) to the streets. I suppose you would think that scotland is a remote and mysterious place where indians have not infiltrated much. You are mistaken my friend. you cant walk on the road without banging on to one. The brown skin is absolutely ubiquitous. And beware! you would find some sharing the same colour as yourself and think of exchanging niceities. But when they open their mouth, what comes out is Glaswegian in its purest form.

About the language ... Glaswegians have a very different accent. First I couldnt understand anything. You couldnt even lip sync because their lips barely move. You could only hear some sounds coming out of their mouth. But you could try to understand what they say from the context. But now I am picking up. Classes are fantastic and the people are friendly. You can get a smile and a hello from anybody on the street. So thats about my initial experiences about Glasgow. I have lots to update but now i should go to the kitchen and think of preparing something. Its been a lifetime since I ve had Idli and sambar. But it costs around 10 pounds for Idli sambar, almost 830 bucks. my mouth is watering...

Oh Simple Faith... Where have you Gone

2007-08-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

Oh Simple Faith ….Where have you gone…

These lines have been reverberating in my mind for the past few days. During my morning journeys to office, music was the sole companion. Bangalore city, in all its hurry, would pass in front of my eyes and I would drink in all the sights and think about what happened, what is happening and what would happen in my world and others’.

Thus one day I came across this song by Keane and it became my favourite.It has a quality which puts the listener into a trance. The song is worded thus:

"I walked across an empty land,
I knew the pathway like the back of my hand
.I felt the earth beneath my feet,
Sat by the river and it made me complete.
Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?
I'm getting old and I need something to rely on.
So tell me when you're gonna let me in,
I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin."

The song is addressed to some body’s love. The refrain “o simple thing where have you gone” is catchy. But whenever I hum the song, what comes to my mind is “oo simple faith where have you gone.”
This can be because they coincide with my thoughts.

I have studied in my school textbooks that man is a social animal. He lives in groups and shares his existence with the fellows of his group. But Charles Darwin has propounded that human evolution was through “survival of the fittest”. That means the fittest human being in a group will survive at the expense of others in the group. But this theory does not support the social sharing theory. When a man helps another to survive, is he reducing his own chance to survive?
The question for which I am seeking answer is “To what extent we can expect help from another human being?” would a human being help another to rise to a level higher than himself? Well my experience is that you should expect the least or you should not expect at all. Keep your expectation low and you ll be happy with what you have got.
How much can we expect from friends. Would a friend threaten his own existence to help you? Would you thwart your own chances of survival to help your best friend? I think such friendships are only the dreams sold by the silver screen and the tinsel world.

Well, I might be thought of as contradicting myself as I have written about friends and the nostalgia that that is created by their absence. I am a fortunate person gifted with lot of good and true friends. But my personal belief is that friendship thrives if you give more and take less. To be honest, my friends have helped me a lot. During my Post Graduate studies, our class was a co operative society. We wrote assignments, even projects for each other and our co operation even extended to class tests. Still I did not expect the same warmth when I started working.

There again, the conclusion that I came to is that expectations cause disappointments. When you expect the least, you get a lot more than you expected. If you expect a lot, the chances that you ll be disappointed are greater. For me this theory has worked, be it friendship or working relationships.

Disorder in its Manifestations

2007-06-09T10:35:00.000-07:00

I came home for a short period of time. Though I have to leave tommorow this journey gave me some interesting insights and also some valuable associations. The best part was my journey home which involved a little adventure..... I carried a small puppy home and i am so thrilled about it.

The inspiration for this blog comes from my little sister with whom I had a long and informative chat. It was raining outside and we found time for some gossip. But the topic changed to something entirely different- manias and phobias. She explained to me the differences between delusion, illusion and hallucination. It was really a download of knowledge and I, being very much associated with GRE, found it extremely illuminating.

Some Interesting Manias:

Ablutomania: i d heard about this obsession before. Only I was not aware of the term used to define it. This is a passion for getting clean, bathing. When I checked I found an antithesis for this ; ablutophobia which is obviously the fear of bathing. We also came across Trichotillomania. A person who has this obsession will suffer from an irresistable urge to pull out his or her hair.

Kleptomania is a well known obsession. It is the impulse to steal which is not provoked by need and it is easy to remember since i ve seen many with this impulse. Since the kleptomaniac is always bound to be your friend or an important person to be offended, very difficult for the mania to surface.

Megalomania: A psychological state characterised by delusions of grandeur, found mostly in CEOs, Software engineers, directors of organizations and many mallus. I ve heard that Hitler was a megalomanic. Ted Hughes' poem Hawk Roosting gives a glimpse of the ramblings of a megalomaniac:
My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of CreationTo produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot...

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change
.I am going to keep things like this

It is very interesting to read about the manias and phobias that grip human beings. A study of these would also throw light into the mechanisms of psychology. Though it is a very vast subject, the study s worth it because of the insights that it provides into human behaviour.

It's Yesterday Once More...

2007-05-25T22:06:00.000-07:00

I think that it's universal that we never realize the value of the 'present' unless it becomes the 'past'. We take it for granted that the present is given to us and we whine and complain about it. It s not that i turned a philosopher overnight, but its just that I am very nostalgic now a days. I crave for things which i had taken for granted in my yesterdays. But you cant help it. You can never get it back...the past, once gone, is gone.

What prompts me to write this much gibberish is the visit of a friend from college. It was a very short meeting but it renewed the warmth of friendship in me. It also opened up a treasure box of memories. School and college life gives you so much freedom. Nobody expects you to behave like adults, nobody expects you to understand things that you dont understand. Its like wearing a burkha... you can see everbody and nobody can see you, and you can always ask these wierd funny questions.

I really miss my schooldays. we used to enjoy so much and yet we thought that we were suffering like hell. The same was the case with my College. We had a smasher of time and my friend's visit brought so many fond memories. I ransacked old files to find tokens and found an interesting one, the picture of a rattle snake. I took it when my friends and I went for a little walk near the lake. It was a magnificent animal with golden yellow scales. Some of us shrunk back but for people like it was a rare sight to be captured. It was a fun moment and a hair raising adventure for a bunch of girls.

I am in love with that place, my hometown and that beautiful lake. I am in the mood to sing " country roads, take me home... to the place , I belong...

Home

2007-05-05T18:25:00.000-07:00

Today I am going back to Bangalore, after a week's stay in my ancestral home. Its very difficult to think of life in Bangalore now. All you could feel is suffocation ... of living a cramped life. Here, you just have to close your eyes and inhale the sweet fragrance of the air to identify that it is Sasthamcotta. I ve always been a little claustrophobic. I ve loved the open skies and and not the enclosed four walls inside a concrete jungle. I ve been madly in love with the beautiful "kayal" here, I ve loved the rain that falls on the sweet earth and lets out that heavenly fragrance. I ve loved the little pools and the big streams that rain brings with it. But still I am going back...

I am going back to hectic mornings ( because I sleep till 8), traffic jams that last for hours and living a life in which i ve never stopped once and asked myself " where am I going?". Yes life is fast and you wont get time to think much about yourself. That's a blessing and a curse. You wont feel the pain of what you lost and its a curse in that you wont even know how many years passed by.

But it is good in a way. You are just a speck in the vast blue sky, just a drop in the deep blue ocean. You are invisible and that's an enjoyable thing. Here whatever you do , eyes watch you ...you are on the centre stage. But there...you can sit back and enjoy the sights. That's worth the sacrifices.

Two Women Who Sang of Death

2007-05-04T22:03:00.000-07:00

Human beings go through different emotional phases in their lives. If all could express what they feel verbatim, there would ve been no difference between a layman and a poet . To translate into words, the language spoken by the mind, is a tedious task. I am reminded of a great writers confession that producing a literary work is like giving birth to a baby. The prospective author has to go through all the pangs of childbirth.

This is why I admire two great women of letters who found a perfect expression of their mind’s language in poetry, though a century separates them. The first one Emily Dickinson, focused on themes relating to death, eternity, and love, usually in short four-line stanzas. Sylvia Plath on the other hand tried to exorcise the oppressive male figures that haunted her life in her poetry. I feel that sylvia’s poems are a successful attempt at unraveling the hazy maze that was her mind. Going through them is a tedious task for a superficial brain, but a rewarding experience for an intutive one.

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put awayMy labor,
and my leisure too,
For his civility.

Emily Dickinson

Death is described as a suitor or a gentleman caller in this poem by Dickinson. Whenever I read this poem, an analogy comes to my mind in a poem called Ente Veli. I think it was by Olappamanna.

The day she visited the dissecting room
They had four men laid out, black as burnt turkey,
Already half unstrung.
A vinegary fume
the death vats clung to them;
The white-smocked boys started working
. The head of his cadaver had caved in,
And she could scarcely make out anything
In that rubble of skull plates and old leather
. A sallow piece of string held it together.
In their jars the snail-nosed babies moon and glow.
He hands her the cut-out heart like a cracked heirloom

from Two Views of a Cadaver Room: Sylvia Plath.

Though this poem is not for the faint hearted or the traditional mindsets, it stands out due to its glaring difference from conventional poetry. This enthralling difference is there in most of her poems. She uses images of cadavers and skull plates in a poem which also speaks of love!

We used to adore her poetry in college and had sessions of discussions on her poetry and life which itself was mysterious. One of our beloved lecturers, Dr Susheel had done his Phd in Plath. So all the dicussions were moderated by him. I still remember that in one of the discussions I opined that Plath was suffering from insecurity ( which is obvious) and there were traces of self pity in her poems and she wrote these poems to attract attention to her frail and insignificant life.

I always believed that I had rare insights into her thought processes. Dont know why. But now I feel that it is just a phase and it will pass. Poetry especially confessional poetry has a connection with solitude and sadness. I agree with Shelley that " the sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought". Poetry springs from alienation, pain and distress. It cannot be denied that there are sweet songs that have sprung from daffodils and running brookes. But I feel that they lack the "essential sadness" which creates a bond with the reader's heart.

Achan

2007-05-04T18:35:00.000-07:00

I ve wanted to write something for a long time. But couldnt convert my thoughts into words. I wanted to write about my father. What could I write about him? I dont have a clue at this point of time. Its a personal sorrow, nobody else would be bothered. They would ask " oh you lost your father ...how sad". Yes, I lost my father and i am not sad for him. I am sad for myself. When I sit alone in a corner of my room here, thoughts haunt me. ..how he was always there for me, how he was a pillar of strength. I just needed him to be there and I would have braved every sea of trouble.

But he is gone, and I am alone.

There is this interesting incident in my childhood. I dont remember when it happened or where . My father and I were walking fast through a crowded place, probably a railway station. I clung to his hand and tightly. But a wave of people came and separated us. I was terrified for a moment but soon found a hand like my father's and ran to it and clung on. We walked a few steps and suddenly I looked up. I remember the shock that I had. It was not my father. It was somebody else!. I was very young and memories of those days come to me as jigsaw puzzles ...several frames of pictures without connectivity. The important events are stored as snapshots. I dont remember how I got back to my father, the next picture that I have is of him waiting for me at a corner where my rescuer handed me over to him.

Funny that I ve never asked my mom or dad about this incident... inspite of being an overly curious kid. It may because there are so many unanswered questions in my mind regarding the snapshots of childhood memory.

But now... I feel that he s been separated from me again and this time I am not sure whether he ll wait for me at the top of the stairs with a smile in his face. I dont want to look up and see that the hand that I am clinging to now is a child of my imagination. Be there with me acha... always.