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!