We will rebuild Every Inch!!

On Wednesday 26th November, a large, well prepared and ruthless terrorist gang launched simultaneous suicide attacks on more than ten locations across Mumbai. Such a level of deadly force applied in a sophisticated attack took the whole country and all its agencies by surprise. The nature of the attacks was to indiscriminately take life in a number of publicly accessible places.
These included the Taj Mahal Palace and Towers, other hotels, a restaurant and public transport locations & a public hospital. We would like to express our heartfelt thanks and deep personal respects to all the members of the National Security Guard, Rapid Action Force, Mumbai Police, Marine Commandos & Grenadiers Regiment (Indian Army) who gave their lives or risked their lives as they confronted the terrorist attackers.
Our thoughts also remain with all those who lost their lives during the attacks - our guests, our staff and their families and many other fellow citizens of Mumbai.



The Taj is very much a symbol of India and we are actually seeing a battle on and we will be defiant. We are monitoring the development of the unfortunate situation unfolding in South Mumbai, in and around our hotel and are fully cooperating with the police and the government authorities to ensure the safety and security of all our guests and staff.
That is all we can say at the moment and we would like to channelise all our effort and energy to ensure a speedy normalisation of the situation as best as we can.
We will rebuild every inch that has been damaged in this attack and bring back the Taj to its full glory.
- The Indian Hotels Company Ltd Statement on 27th November 2008.



The terrible wanton attacks last night on innocent people and the destruction of prominent landmarks in India deserve to be universally condemned.
My sympathies and condolences go out to all those who have suffered, been injured, and those who have lost their loved ones in this terrible act of hatred and destruction. It is important that divisive forces were not allowed to weaken the country. We must stand together, shoulder to shoulder as citizens of India, and rebuild what has been destroyed.
We must show that we cannot be disabled or destroyed, but that such heinous act will only make us stronger. We need to overcome these forces as one strong unified nation.
-Ratan Naval Tata, Chairman Tata Sons on 27th November 2008.

When the property is handed back to our full control, we will commission a range of professionals to carry out studies of the structure, services, the extent of fire damage and all other aspects of the condition of the building.
Nothing can compensate for the terrible loss of life across the city of Mumbai over the past few days and the impact on families and loved ones.
But the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower stands as an icon of the city of Mumbai, a symbol of both independence and dignity. It will also stand in the future as a representation of the indomitable human spirit of the people of Mumbai displayed in the face of the greatest adversity.
- The Indian Hotels Company Ltd Statement on 29th Novembe 2008.

The Taj is defiant...

The Taj is very much a symbol of India and we are actually seeing a battle on and we will be defiant.
We are monitoring the development of the unfortunate situation unfolding in South Mumbai, in and around our hotel and are fully cooperating with the police and the government authorities to ensure the safety and security of all our guests and staff. That is all we can say at the moment and we would like to channelise all our effort and energy to ensure a speedy normalisation of the situation as best as we can.
We will rebuild every inch that has been damaged in this attack and bring back the Taj to its full glory.
- The Indian Hotels Company Ltd Statement
on 27th November 2008.




The terrible wanton attacks last night on innocent people and the destruction of prominent landmarks in India deserve to be universally condemned. My sympathies and condolences go out to all those who have suffered, been injured, and those who have lost their loved ones in this terrible act of hatred and destruction.
It is important that divisive forces were not allowed to weaken the country. We must stand together, shoulder to shoulder as citizens of India, and rebuild what has been destroyed.
We must show that we cannot be disabled or destroyed, but that such heinous act will only make us stronger. We need to overcome these forces as one strong unified nation.
-Ratan Naval Tata, Chairman Tata Sons
on 27th November 2008.

awake... and abandon the ego...

Knowledge has always been touted over the ages as a source of power, even enlightenment, yet over the ages the greatest thinkers, have warned us not to revel in our false knowledge, in individuality and in a sense of our own being.
Indeed they have all advocated abandoning the ego and of discarding the individual as the only path to true knowledge and even nirvana.
Each ancient tradition has discovered its own version of this thought. In our global village we need to discover this Axial ethos again. 'Do not do unto others what you would not have done to you', and each of these minds have discovered their own path to this ultimate religion of oneness and nothingness and peace.

Who verily knows and who can here declare it,
whence it was born and whence comes this creation?
The gods are later than this world's production,
who knows then whence it first came into being?
He, the first origin off this creation,
whether he formed it all or did not form it,
Whose eyes controls this world in highest heaven,
he verily knows it - or perhaps he knows not.*

One day a brahmin, walking down a path found a man sitting under a tree and the sight of his serenity, stillness and self-discipline filled the priest with awe. The man reminded him of a tusker elephant - there was the same sense of enormous strength and massive potential brought under control and channeled into an extraordinary peace. The brahmin had never seen a man like this before. "Are you a God sir?" he asked "An angel perhaps or a spirit?"
"No." replied the man "I am surely none of these, I am merely the best in myself. I have simply revealed a new potential in human nature. It is possible to live in this world of dukkha at peace, in control and in harmony with all creatures. Once people have cut the roots of their egotism, they live at the peak of their capacity" he said.
The brahmin understood, instantly and subtlety all at once, "How should I describe you?" he inquired.
"Remember me," the Lord Goutama Buddha told him, "as one who is awake."**

Centre your attention - Stop listening with your ears and listen with your mind. Then stop listening with your mind and listen with your primal spirit. Hearing is limited to the ear. The mind is limited to tallying things up. But the primal spirit which is within you, is empty. It's simply that which awaits things. Tao is emptiness merged and emptiness is the mind's fast. To know something is to distinguish it form something else, to forget these distinctions is to become aware of undifferentiated unity and to lose all sense of being a separate individual.
Instead of using every opportunity to feed the ego, we had to starve it. Even the best intentions could be grist to the mill of our selfishness.*** - Said Kong Qiu^ (551-479) to his disciples.
One day his favourite disciple came to him, "I'm gaining ground" beamed Yan Hui "I sit quietly and I forget". "What do you mean?" asked his master. "I let the body fall away and the intellect fade. I throw out form abandon understanding - and then move freely blending away into the great transformation"
Kong Qiu went pale with delight, his disciple had surpassed him. "If you blend away like that, you are free of likes and desires and all ego. If you are all transformation, you are free of permanence. So in the end there is only you."****

"Ask questions and analyse the implications of the answers, discover the inherent flaws and inconsistencies of every single point of view. Reject one definition after another. Your aim is not to come up with a clever or intellectually satisfying solution. The admission we seek is that there is no answer. This discovery and confusion is far more important that a neat conclusion, because once you have realised that you know nothing, once you have abandoned the myth of your ego, your philosophical quest can begin" said Socrates.****

When he sees identity in everything
Whether Joy or Suffering
Through analogy with the self,
He is deemed a man of pure discipline******


*Rig Veda, 10.129:6-7 (Circa 1600-900 BCE)
**Angutara Nikaya 4.36 (Circa 450-398 BCE)
***The Book of Zhuangzi 4:26-28 (Circa 400-300 BCE)
****The Book of Zhuangzi 6:93 (Circa 400-300 BCE)
*****Laches - Plato (Circa 400 BCE)
******Bhagvad Gita 6:32 (Cirica 300 BCE)

^Kong Qiu was know as Kongfuzi or 'Our Master Kong' - or in translation - Confucius

Overriding Credit: The Great Transformation (the beginning of our religious traditions) - Karen Armstrong 2006

within...

i am a rock... i am an island...
and rocks feel no pain...and an island never cries...*

the truth of it all is there is one.. a truth...

an objective reality... a singularity... and it exists paradoxically and simultaneously and effortlessly in the last place you'd expect the perfect manifestation of it..

and therefore, to be truly free is also possible...

yes, we do live in a complex web of social order and acceptability... so to be truly free you must truly be alone.. where your actions have no reactions.. where there is no causality.. no hint of judgement... and that's only in one place...

your own mind..

there is only one person inside your head... know this.. your masques are not for you.. you know they're masques... that's the very nature of them.. they're for them.. all of them.. you know who you are.. in corners and dark lonely walks home you know what you want and how.. in wisps of fantasy you'll never articulate.. you know.. in deeds of freedom you try and express this... fleetingly...

yet there are also infinite possibilites to that existance... and that is the absolute marvel of it all...

within... where you are emperor and sinner.. where time and space collapses into a little pile of immaterialism.. where you are yourself and not...

within... where you can go a hundred places and through time.. where you can smell the fresh air of cities never visited and live lives never lived in times gone by and times yet to come and be heroes in epics never written... where all that separates babylon and bombay is a thought... where sounds are as real as real can be... where music is omnipresent... where anything is possible.. if god does truly exist she exists as your own consciousness... nothing more nothing less.

within... where there are no constraints or obstacles except those that you create.. where the most buried of emotions..and deeds can come to you anytime and consume you... where you can laugh and cry and care and not.. without reason or justification.. where justification is a myth and reason a slave of you..

within... they travel the most that travel inwards.. outward pleasure and pain and success and all these meaningless yardsticks are just that.. meaningless... fleeting glimpses of that which you already have within...

within... where you can be all people, just yourslef and your own personal deity... where there is nothing but you...

na deen hai na duniya na insaan na bhagvan sirf main.. sirf main...**

yet we go through our entire lives fighting this very concept.. we quote quantum theory and the idea that there is no individuality... that all else is only as it is because of everything else.. that enactment in its very nature makes you part of the whole.. we abhor individual genius and we tag miserable tags... we hail individual achievment yes.. but only within the context of a larger set... we despise those who are at peace with themselves and have abandoned the ego... those that have realised that the key is not to scale the highest mountain but build your own...

we seek chaos to define us.. we reach out for this sense of the butterfly effect and believe in this intermingling infinite web of connecting ether... we yearn to enact our part in this play... but we don't need to..

we go through our lives fighting this very instinct.. we use people.. situations and feelings and relationships, we grasp tightly onto associations and seek to be defined by being part of something larger, not one.. but two.. or three or seven billion... we try... to shield ourselves from this eventuality... this objective reality... this truth... and we fail miserably...

and we don't spend enough time on that which can save us.. in any situation.. instantly...

where all things must end.. where life begins and maybe... just maybe ends.. maybe...

within...

*cf: I Am A Rock, Simon & Garfunkel
**cf: Raju Swami in Vijay Anand's Guide

be life...

thag lenge, naina thag lenge...
jagte jadoo phookenge... neenden banjar kardenge...*

its been ages since i've blogged... really said anything left unsaid...

naina ko to dasne ka chaska laga re...
naina banwaran kardenge...*

theres a reason... its that i need severe emotional trauma to spew out my stream of consciousness dribble crutch aginst the reality of the pain which is... and i havent had any... since my life has been balanced by the last wanderer.. who i assume has stopped wandering.. ? no clue...

naino ki zuban par bharosa nahi aata... likhad pardat na raceed na khata
bin badal barsaen sawan... sawan bin barsatan...*

so i have come up with a new reason to write.. i wrote for myself.. i can only write for myself... but now ill write.. to myself.. oh the vainty.. the simple plain feel of the perfect pinot noir on your tongue... the smell of the night after the rains in the pine and cannibus laden hills of himachal... the first ray of fresh sunshine on a dreary cloudy day...

i watch from behind these cold hazel eyes.. an air of superiority.. undefined.. like a wisp of smoke.. in the air.. solid until you touch it.. it runs through your fingers like a dreamy snake, like water... it flows... away... i see scenes in front of me... i hear voices.. some old and long forgotten screaming to be heard again.. some new.. unfamiliar but with promises of the alluring freshness of a ripe peach... they speak to me.. all of them.. through the wonders of technology they pervade my space... they force themselves into my nonchalant existance.. claiming rights understood but never explicitly given...

words from songs.. that tug at the familiar.. the sense of who i am and where i come from.. swades...

philmon ke gaano main... koi to chal zid phadiye.. **

and the feeling is one of euphoria.. of an extasy.. not felt.. only experienced.. known.. wanting to be known...

the dhol... pounding in your brain.. talking of all before them who have played out this song.. far from home..

what do you hope to gain.. what speicfically do you want.. does it all come down to vain success or is there more to it.. look at her.. content in her hilly dream.. him.. with his dreams a reality.. all his dreams except the lonliness of being alone..

see them... and what do you think.. better.. worse.. doesnt matter.. not comparable.. different people different paths to nirvan.. each to his own.. bullshit...

pathar ke in ratson pe, phoolon ki ek chadaar hai...
jab se milen ho humko, badla hai har ek manzar hai...
kya mujhe pyar hai, asia khumar hai...***

is life a comparison.. who where how much... or is it more simple than that.. is it about feeling...

is life not but a series of experiences.. pain and joy.. thats it.. in its many guises in its many aliases.. in its many degrees and directions.. in its many forms and conduits.. pain and joy..
if so why be afraid of them.. they are enduring.. beyond all others.. beyond everything..

na deen hai na duniya na insaan na bhagvan.. sirf main.. sirf main..****

agony and ecstacy... the polar opposites on which this mortal existance of ours revolves.. spins.. uncontrollably..

do we accept this absolute calvanian view of inevtability.. isnt there somethign sacred..? something personal.. something.. mouldable by the self.. a reflection of who we are.. ours.. a legacy.. some thing to say that yes.. i am.. and i did.. and somewhere someone is affected..

or does it go deeper than that even... baser than even base.. underneath it alll... why the pain.. or the joy.. if its just a shuffling of the deck.. then.. why worry.. just be.. live..

drain.. and expereince.. and drain every experience.. take it in.. let it out.. be it.. be them all.. all the forms.. and shapes and conduits.. let them all come to you.. and from you.. and become you...

life...

the magical undefiend force that is beyond even experience.. even base.. life.. eternal and giving..

be life...

today.. and forever.. pledge to just be.. be... and all else will come and go and change.. you just be..

be....

*Niana, Ost - Omkara
**Chak De, Ost - Chak De
***Kya Mujhe Pyaar Hai, Ost - Woh Lamhe
****Guide, Vijay Anand

an eventful night...

as all good tales must be, this too is set in a mystical land.. a place called new york... one arrives into this cocophony of life and is at once unsettled and elated by the sheer magnitde of it all.. the scale.. larger than life.. the big apple...

the story though, unravles thus... a dinner... filet mignon and brooks pinot noir.. one seamingly made for the other... a leisurely meal.. nostagia and updates... time flies.. a quick cab ride.. horus.. mint green tea and sheesha... more stories.. some bitching and an introspection of who we are and how happy we are to be with who we are... more sheesha... more conversation.. flowing like the old.. accustomed... familiar...

back home.. hospitalty and lucidity... more endless conversations about agartala...

a sudden realisation.. some panic.. to distanced yet.. not real..

check.. re check.. re re check.. hope.. pain... futility... not there...

a few frantic phonecalls.. not there...

a few more.. not there...

that difficult call.. admiting.. self blame.. why me... not again...

helplessness.. tears.. pain.. futlity... absolute disgust...

rethinking.. going over it again and again.. dsecting.. redisecting.. conjecturing...

hoping against hope.. against santiy.. this is new york... no way anyones gonna turn it in...

still hope...

sleepless nights.. playing on repeat.. in superslow motion..

agony.. exhaustion... seven am... sleep...

eight am.. call to action...

nypd.. 17th precinct.. 26 federal plaza... 86th st... helter skelter..

one innocuous call... a message..

more calls.. high connections...

the consuate...

a call.. yes we do.. yes you can.. ill b right there..

smile.. breathe... exhale.. finally... run.. cab.. pay... feet tapping.. heart racing.. in my hands...

absolute relief...

never again... never...

dark chocolate mocha and a conversation... peace...

and through it all her constanct support.. unshakeable...

anahat arora lost his passort on 27th and park and found it next morning... a series of very unfortunate events...

life goes on...

five weeks....

as I sit today five weeks into what will undoubtedly be a career and maybe life defining two semesters at the hotel school at Cornell.. I cannot but help think that this may in fact be worth it.. the costs are staggering.. financial and emotional.. this frantic pace if globetrotting which began in singapore and which will culminate there many months from now... will undoubtedly lead me onto experiences i'd never imagined.. yet the journey may itself be as rewarding as the goal.. as many a wise men have said over the course of the eons..

one so often get caught up in the melle of it all that one forgets to enjoy the little moments of pure joy and sorrow.. what is life if not the justaxpositioning of the two basest of emotions...

swimming in the waterfalls and gorges of the six mile creek by my second day in.. catching my first of many wide mouthed bass.. discovering a discreet little tobacco shop that sells al-faker.. wearing the Cornell Hotel Society pin on your lapel.. driving on the wrong side of the road and realising it was indeed the right side no matter how loudly the decades of conditioning were screaming warning signals inside your head..

day trip to the over rated niagra falls.. discovering the iPhone in it's many incarnate wonders.. endless afternoons at college town bagels.. walking the proud and historically rich halls of the statler filled with a sense of pride and belonging... watching the sunset at nine in the evening and discovering bright sunshine and a pretty drizzle at six... the magical taste of ying ling hitting the palette.. the endless nights spent over excel solver and powerpoint... the thrill of winning and the numbing disappointment of defeat... the casual glances and the occasional unashamed racial slur...

being part of something so grand and so welcoming yet being completely isolated in the vastness of it all... being constantly connected via technology and the realisation of the desperate need to be so...

sitting alone and puffing your very being in clouds of sheesha smoke.. grasping the familiar so tight that it slips away... new accents new people new lives.. same me...

in just five weeks.. and there are another nineteen to come... what will they bring...?

magical fingertips...

I write this from my magical fingertips.. With no more excuses for spelling errors and typos.. With my new iPhone 3g.. apples new magical convergence device.. True it does have some bugs that need fixing.. But the simplicity with which you can use the clumsy touch key pad thanks to the built in algorithms is just fantastic.. Enough with clunky laptops and worrying about battery power.. This Is the future it's here today.. Kudos to Steve jobs and his team again.. Another social phenomenon in the making...

I sign off now into another sleepless Ithaca night.. And that is yet another story yet to be told of weather gods with a quirky sense of humour, new york state bar rules, bike rides into oblivion and spin fishing...

But for now.. I truly recommend this little gem to anyone considering it.. And to anyone waiting for it.. Stick to it.. It's more than well worth the wait.. I mean how do you compete with an app that delivers motion sensing light sabre sounds! Come on..

going home again...

another pile of goodbyes.. but this time... its not a little pile but infact a single large one. My suitcase reminds my flatmate of a pregnat woman. now that's something... how I managed to pack everything in it is a tale of wonder.. besides cursing it and zipping painstaking micron by micron I at one time did my best Space Odyssey imitation.. by jumping on the bag like an awakened ape... my Monolith was finally zipped up. The remains of my life scattered around the room.. Let me collect my life into a portable form. Two Suitcases and a Carry bag.. my life.

I'm leaving my super efficient little home for the last 7 odd weeks and heading home.. back to Rajma Chawal and traffic jams... bad driving and dirty air.. hehe.. yeah yeah and I'm so glad... a quick stopover at home.. before heading to Ithaca and another half year of scholarly pursuits... I long to be with the familiar again and it seems so strange that I'm already feeling sad for the little time I'll have... it's almost like I don't have time to be relieved...

But I am so glad for the Fort Palace trip... It'll give us much needed time to be alone.. that day will have to last a hundred and eighty more... It will have to, we must make it.. there's no option.

as I bid farewell to Nanyang Technological Univeristy and Ez-Link cards and OCBC bank.. I feel nothing. as always.. oh u cold cold man... I smile a mischevious smile.. oh well..!

to another dawn and another chapter.. but I'll be back here.. I'm not completely done with this place just yet...

Al Nasrin.. my new Oasis...

As I sit... on the corner of Arab and Baghdad Streets... staring at a white and green back lit which reads Al-Nasrin, with the smell of the all familiar molasses smoke filling me... I can say again I am in my new found Oasis... Pull... Al Fakheer mint... bliss...

though I tried to write this post earlier.. I felt I would not be doing it justice unless I wrote on location.. so here is my first on-location post... hopefully there will be many more to come...

the scene is set... a lot of plain metal and plastic chairs scattered about.. tables with little square floral patterned candle holders and a familiar camaraderie of sheesha patrons... in front the road with cars rolling by and on this occasion.. an old classic.. a yellow boxter convertible.. adds to the occasion... it flowing lines in sharp contrast to the delivery vans and working class air of this area... in the distance the golden dome of the Masjid Sultan and around you carpet sellers and more sheesha bars, and the broken down pavement under your feet, with so many of it's own stories to tell, no doubt. The air is filled with casual chatter which spills into the streets from all over, and surprisingly Lionel Richie... adding to the eclecticness of the whole setting...

as I sip my iced mint tea I am reminded of another eclectic oasis on a Colaba rooftop of a very shady hotel... and I wonder if my blog resembles a global sheesha backpackers guide... maybe so...

pull... release... I return to myself.. to here and now.. content in the knowledge that amongst even the most sanitized of nation states there is this little Oasis of revelry and old world Bohemia still thriving... refusing to be modernised...

as I am about to press publish... the magical sound of the Qur'an fills the air from the nearby mosque and Lionel Richie is turned off in respect...

In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful
All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of all the worlds,
The Gracious, the Merciful, Master of the Day of Judgment.
Thee alone do we worship and Thee alone do we implore for help.
Guide us in the right path
The path of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy blessings, those who have not incurred Thy displeasure, and those who have not gone astray*

*cf: Sura 1.1 to 1.6, The Holy Qu'ran

the hollow disconnect...

like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
down to a hollow where the sun has never shone...*

outside it's raining.. as it always seems to here.. inside I sit alone.. immersed in my own thoughts... and realise the only word i can come up with to describe this feeling of helplessness is... hollow.. a deep echoing hollow... a hollow disconnect of being so far away.. of being in this unrealistic reality so different from the one you imagined you'd be in and fought to achieve for quite a while..

words that jangle in your head....*

it gnaws at you and makes you want to just close your eyes and drift off into a eye-clenched sense of nothingness less you break down... u grasp at the very sense of normality to keep yourself from being swept away in an untiring emotional swirl... you grasp at the thought of a thought.. a glimpse.. a verse... a ticker... of the familiar... an image... but its gone in a flash and try as you might it doesn't help..

when you knew that it was over,
were you suddenly aware...
that the autumn leaves were turning
to the colour of her hair*

you sit alone and type furiously.. hoping... even praying that you're making sense... sense of what you're feeling or afraid to feel... its a hollow sense of the fear... of the what if it all unravels and spills out.. which reality will you pick.. which reality will pick you.. the one you fight so hard to hold onto in a fragment of a dream and a sense of whats awaits you far away.. oh so far away.. or the reality that you live with every breath... the one that you fight so hard not to get immersed in..

and here I sit, hand on the telephone, hearing a voice I know, a couple of lightyears away**

to fill your moments of hollow terror with a sense of what can be is a very hard life to live my love.. make it easier...

*cf: Windmills of your Mind, Ost - The Thomas Crown Affair
**cf: Diamonds and Rust, Joan Baez

Song of Myself*

No Array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about Death.
I hear and behold God in every object, yet I understand God not in the least, Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself...
And as to Death, and you bitter hug of mortality... it is idle to try to alarm me.
As to you life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths
No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.*

I return to myself.. into my own self preserving shell.. I am but an illusion of my best self.. I am escaping and missing out on my honest self.. who knows.. I know.. I know not.

Of all the realities to imagine this is the one that I never imagined.. to be so far.. while she sips alcohol in the realm of the familiar.. stretching back to what was.. As it becomes what is..

My anxiety is for myself... no reassurances can work until I trust and thereby reassure myself.. It's like you're living waiting for an epiphany of some sign that you don't have to worry.. don't have to wonder.. that it doesn't matter.. that trust is enough that love is enough.

And there is love.. so much love.. real.. like the fear of loss.. for the first time in nine months and two days I felt afraid of losing.. to an unknown variable.. that I think is what scared me the most.. frightened me...

But I return to myself and realise that just to enjoy life and all its wonders you put your whole life itself into that pursuit.. you wager life itself in a bid to live more... patience... one needs calm.. against or with the wind sometimes you do need calm.. it's not being still if you choose to be still... If it's your very own choice...

And that the reassurance does work... its a mental self construct that you need to realise is nothing but imagination at work.. the cynical fear of something you can't touch or taste.. of some thing unknown and it worries you...

I flee from that which worries me.. I ignore it.. hoping that It'll go away.. oft it does.. or it recedes back into a harmless oblivion and you shrug and smile a half smile in the realisation that you were panicking. Sometimes it's real but not really, and you come to that realisation with time and calm.

If you want it you need to come and get it... to grasp it.. to hold that comforting thought that'll pull you through any sort of anxiety.. of her.. and her hair.. and the way she looks at me..

I return to myself in those moments of calm and worry no more.. I say I love you.. and mean it.. and worry no more...

I sleep a peaceful sleep.. I write a another scattered piece of my life.. and I return to myself...

It's all right.. It's a part of the whole process.. you can't ignore a reality that's sitting in front of her and making small talk..

You accept it and trust her.. and know that as you return to yourself you return to each other and that the feeling of being part of something more.. of something wonderfully more is what it's all about in the end...

I return to her and to my song of myself...

*cf: Song of Myself, Walt Whitman, 1885

The Cornell NTU Singapore Campus

I've never been to a more organised and efficient place in all these years.. It's true I've never lived out of India either, but you can tell. From public transport, be it buses, the mass transit sytem, general traffic, the Banking System or Changi Airport its all a model of super clean super green efficiency. And for an Ayn Rand die hard this is heaven. The tiny Island Republic of Singapore!

Ok so basic information - I'm in Singapore - pursuing a dual campus MMH Degree (Masters in Hospitality Management) from The Cornell Hotel School and the Nanyang Business School. We get to spend six months in each campus so which is what I'm doing here till end June. We get to come back here next year for the final four months.

The campus is just fantastic... it's spread out but very systematic. I'm living in an apartment complex on campus called Nanyang Heights which I'm sharing with four other colleagues from Taj. We're all on some form of scholarship from the Company or Institute.

It feels strange to be away after clawing my way back home after almost five years. But its also an experience I couldn't pass up. Hopefully we'll manage and thee costs won't be that high that we regret anything.

At the end of the day I still believe home is a feeling, this could be Bombay or Chennai - it doesn't matter. Yes there is time difference and skyrocketing phone costs but besides that it's just as bad, not worse.

I can see why so many people flock to this cosmopolitan hub. It really is something special, and I've only been here three nights. It's so easy to live in so comfortable. And for all those doubting pseudo-intellectuals who claim that only drones are produced here, I say to them may be. But I'm no drone and I'm loving it.

Course its bloody expensive when you think of a 50c cup of coffee or a 7$ mop. But you also get a full beef steak with coleslaw and fries and rice for 3.5$ !! so you decide... Oh and after so many years of Fillet of Fish, I finally had a decent double cheeseburger for and that too for 2$! nice nice.. I think I'm going to enjoy it here.

But I do miss you guys, and you my hobbit. But at least for now I'm revelling in the glory of efficiency and have so much stuff to do that I can hardly stop and take a deep breath. Eventually it'll catch up but hopefully it'll be June end and I'll be home for a bit.

It's eleven am and I'm just back from a mandatory medical checkup for my student's pass. So I'll be taking a nap now!

khoon chala...

kuch kar guzarne ko... khoon chala.
aankhon ke sheeshe main utarne ko... khoon chala
badan se tapak kar... zameen se lipat kar...

galiyon se raston se... ubhar kar umad kar...
naye rang bharne ko.. khoon chala...*

In respect and solidarity with the people of tibet...

*cf: Khoon Chala, Rang de Basanti - Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Productions

Possibilities

thoda sa to sabr karon yaaron
chaal to hum ko chalne do...
haar aur jeet to hoti hai
khel to yaaron khelne do...*

inspiration can take many forms... it can come from the slightest brush of nostalgia... from the slightest hint of a smile long forgotten...

i haven't written in some time now... a long hiatus.. and a post long overdue... but it needed that right nudge... which I got today... at being able to find an old song from a very old hindi movie... ek subah ek mod par...

you go through life.. taking things as they come.. shaping your destiny with will and vanity.. forging through experiences, hitherto unknown.. like an out stretched hand that grasps.. sometimes air, sometimes the fruit of some long forgotten labour...

i am again about to turn my world upside down... always restless.. in pursuit of that hazy shape far off in the horizon.. of what can be.. possibilities...

i embark again on a journey, seeped with lonliness and disconnect.. leaving behind the comforts i fought and kicked and whined to get back to... home... delhi.. familar pills of lethargy...

i risk much.. a love found.. a love maybe not fully nurtured... but a love trusted... with faith and a sense of something larger, more meaningful, more wholesome and continuous...

i despise standing still.. and yet i yearn for stillness so much more.. it is the dichotomy that is me... a polar illusion which may destroy me.. and one that certainly defines me...

singapore... ithaca... unknown places holding the promise of ambition and possibility and pain...

new people.. places.. possibilities... in a jingle jangle morning i follow a new dream...

a leap of blind faith, that somehow it would yield what i want.. yet, i know not what i really want.. and i know what i do.. and this isn't it either...

jab kabhi mud ke dekhta hun main
tum bhi kuch ajnabee si lagti ho...
main bhi kuch ajnabee sa lagta hun...**

will i recognise what i want in time.. will i recognise me, the next time i look back at myself...

no regrets...

ek subah ek mod par...
maine kaha use rok kar
hath bada ai zindagi
aankh mila ke baat kar...***

so much is fluid.. so much is wagered.. my essence my future.. me

roz tere jeene ke liye ek subah mujhe mil jaati hai...***

a new world full of possibilities

tere hazaron chehron main ek chehra hi mujhse milta hai
tu shaam meri main tera seher...***

but i know what im coming back to this time.. and thats a certainty that is beyond blind faith, its built on a knowledge as deep as the love which makes it possible..

a love that makes it all possible...

a strength that comes to face the unknown, from within that certainty...

maidan hai saari zindagi
aur khel hai saari umro ka...
kuch aur bhi acha lagta hai
phal milta hai jab sabr ka
thoda sa sabr karo yaaron...*

thanks my hobbit...

*cf: Hip Hip Hurray Ho, Ost - Hip Hip Hurray, 1984
**cf: Jab Kabhi Mudk Dekhtan Hun Main, Ost - Hip Hip Hurray, 1984
***cf: Ek Subah Ek Mod Par, Ost - Hip Hip Hurray, 1984