If I had a heart - encore

I finally bought the new Joni Mitchell album, on the sort of a day you should buy a Joni album.

It began with picking strawberries. There is something rhythmic about walking through a strawberry field. Measured, light steps, hunched back, hands rifling through the plant, ever so gently. You don't pull on any strawberry you like. You hold it gently and wait for it to come away into your hand. If it doesn't, you move on. A bit like life isn't it...

Then there was a destination-less drive through the country side just outside of Cary and Apex. Farms upon farms, and in the middle tractors taking down trees of a hundred years in a hundred minutes. Elegantly huge signs posted up for the penultimate luxury living. A fence put up to shield the prospects from the murder of the forest that lived with itself in peace forever. Every now an then, spotting a crude, hand-painted chart put up annoyingly close to the construction sites, saying, pleading, "Stop Cary from taking over our farms / lives / ways of living". A sickening contrast, showing that the battle had already been won by the big industry, and all the little specks, and small farmers would soon be made to move off. Some with a juicy bone of enough money to retire in pseudo-luxury, others just forced out by building pressures.

Next stop was that wonderful old book shop in Franklin Street. Where you can sort through arrays of books, reeking of eras gone by, some falling apart in your hands. Sifting through books in the company of cats that don't smell like cats, but like old old books. You can feel the wisdom and peace that lies within the books in their eyes, and in their lazy sprawl. I bought more books then I would have time to read in the near future, but somehow their just lying there on my table gives me a certain reassurance. That this existence is somehow about a little more then I think. And there is always the possibility of a wonderful surprise. Not the surprise of a birthday party thrown in your honor, but the surprise of a flower blossoming in the wrong season.

And then I walked into the used and new music shop right across the street. Arrays of Jazz music, Blues scattered about, records of years of yonder stacked up with all the dust. Somehow I found my way to the M's and there it was, the album I had been meaning to buy. An album that I nearly bought in NY City, but was dissuaded by Alina. But then that wasn't the day or place to buy a Joni album either. Standing inside a Starbucks on Times Square, surrounded by Big Yellow Taxis, and feeling mother earth dying just a little bit more with that unnecessary car's exhaust.

But in that music shop where the owner actually knew every record, CD, LP he had in his store, and he knew the music. Somehow that felt the right time to bring "Shine" into my life.

We heard the album on our way back, before stopping in the middle to eat the strawberries with cream and sugar borrowed from that coffee shop. I have been listening to it every since. And I feel at peace with myself for now. Questions of right, wrong, belief, heaven and hell don't bother me. I am just hoping this feeling will go on just a little bit longer.

If I Had A Heart
by Joni Mitchell

Holy war
Genocide
Suicide
Hate and cruelty...
How can this be holy?
If I had a heart I'd cry.

These ancient tales...
The good go to heaven
And the wicked ones burn in hell...
Ring the funeral bells!
If I had a heart I'd cry.

There's just too many people now
Too little land
Much too much desire
You feel so feeble now
It's so out of hand
Big bombs and barbed wire
We've set our lovely sky
Our lovely sky
On fire!

There's just too many people now
And too little land
Too much rage and desire
It makes you feel so feeble now
It's so out of hand-
Big bombs and barbed wire...
Can't you see
Our destiny?
We are making this Earth
Our funeral pyre!

Holy Earth
How can we heal you?
We cover you like a blight...
Strange birds of appetite...
If I had a heart I'd cry.
If I had a heart I'd cry.
If I had a heart I'd cry.

Remembrance

Christina G. Rossetti said it better then I could ever so I won't be saying anything...

Remember
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

I dreamt my life last night...

The wind howled in my ears, and the trees, just like the grass, were kissing the ground. Water was pouring from the skies, and bouncing off the ground. I could feel the loud thuds of heavy downpour on my head and the back of my neck. Some water seeped into my ears as well. With eyes squinted I rambled on, in my hysteria, not really looking for shelter, but just wanting to feel the rain a little more violently. I couldn't see much, but I could hear the hut's tin roof clanking away into the wee hours of the night. It was as if all the spoons, knives, mirrors, and dishes from the Beauty and the Beast had come over to celebrate the end of the never-ending drought. I ran in the direction of the loudest clamor and hugged the worn-down and soaked wooden wall, made up of tree trunks of surprisingly similar width. And suddenly I was thinking about the death of all these trees to make up these four walls, to provide shelter to one or two. But the tree trunks stood resolute against the gushes of wind.

And all of a sudden I had this urge to run away from there, far away from there, and then I was in Mrs. Boxworth's sixth grade music class, auditioning for the chorus. I was making an utter fool of myself in that bright room with the somber looking piano, trying to hide my crush on her, and at the same time trying to sound not too unpleasant. Unsure if I should lean against the piano, I just stood there with my arms folded, and eyes still squinted. The sun in Spring Valley always shone very bright on a clear March morning. And then I was thinking about the walk back from the school. It would be very cold, and the kids would be mean to me again. I would be Saddam Boy to them. Strange that I only found out about Saddam after I was called his boy, strange as I wasn't even from his country. And I needed to leave again.

And in that very moment I had grown a couple of years, and was playing cricket with my friends from the street. They would soon close the play-ground to build the market, so it was very important to play as much as we could. At-least we'd still have our naala which smelled a little funny. Mother said that it was always less them a mile from you wherever you went in Islamabad, and that it wasn't form swimming as the water was dirty. But it didn't seem dirty, just smelled a little. I played the ball to the off-side and ran for a single, and collapsed to the ground before I made it to the other end. It was as if someone was sticking out a needle right under my right kidney. Soon this guy in a white coat was telling me about my appendix, and how they had to do something right away, and I needed to run away again.

And then I was in the old book shop in Jinnah, rifling through as many books as I could, and making sure I didn't spill my coffee on any. Shabbir chacha had already warned me not to. But he let me drink coffee in his little shop, as he said I wasn't like these other kids from my school, and my parents had taught me respect. Hemingway sounded like a cool name, and I decided to walk out with the old man and take his sea with me. It looked small enough to finish in a night, and then my parents would think I was studying for the Math exam. Besides I couldn't call Zeeshan up at night as he would be talking to his girlfriend on the phone and tell his mother that it was me. And now it reminded me of her and I wanted to be gone from there as well. I wanted to be all grown up, and I wanted to have a full stubble like all the other guys in class, well not all, but most of them. Maybe I should try shaving with my uncle's Sensor Excel again.

And there I was walking down that crooked path right across from the Covered market, that lead to the two swings on the left. I was on the swing and my troupe of four were all walking and swinging around me. We were speaking of everything, love, life, parents, and that really cool show about that group of six friends in New York, and the ever alluding GPA. I was told by my true friend to focus more on my assignments, but I convinced her to just let me copy. She disagreed but I knew she would let me copy anyway. And then it was decided to go to the dhaaba that was at the end of the crooked path, for a cup of tea (or two) . And then I was thinking about that dog that came out of the house with all the flowers. It wasn't that I was scared of dogs, I just never liked them very much, at least that would be my story and I would stick to it. But I decided to walk in the middle of everyone just to be safe. And I knew that I needed to move on.

And then I was sitting in that hall full of people, all of whom were facing me. The fancy shayrwaani kurta was suffocating me and the turban was just outright silly. To top it off, Nasir bhai (my barber) had bleached my hands without saying what he was doing. So I this brown dude with blond hair on his hands, wearing a funny outfit, facing the crowd. The mike in front of my looked like a viper, and I wondered if the dude with the big beard would ask me to recite the third kalma. I should have learned it, and I knew that would come back to bite me in the ass someday. Or at least I should have shaved my goatee, for there was this sect that had goatees that weren't considered Muslims.

Shit!

I was thinking of what the sect was called and the Imam was talking to me. Well at least I wasn't being quizzed, just made to affirm my beliefs. And then I was looking at the papers in front of me and the yellow Piano pen lying on top of them. I would make the biggest decision in my life, and sign it off with a freaking Rs. One-Fifty, Piano-shitty-ball point pen. I needed to get out of there.

And then I was hugging the soaked hut again. The wind was as loud, the downpour as thick, but I felt still. I was in a state of complete heartsease. It was as if I could hear every drop of rain on every surface in the vicinity. Kind of like the first time I smoked pot. I wasn't awkward, anxious, or uncertain. I was just there.

There in that moment, that fake, hallucinogenic moment, which felt more real then my life in a very uncanny way.

Breaking down

I read something by someone today that got me thinking about the web of relationships that we create around us. Specially in the context of relationships that die, some violent deaths, and some that surrender to the slow embrace of inevitability. Some leave us with a comfortable longing, and some leave us shaken up to the core, scared of even a mild breeze.

But no matter how they end, they leave permanent markers on us, like stamps on our existence always reminding us of what was. Changing us, and forever taking away that little innocence that stems from blind faith and trust. Leaving us just a little more cynical, and little more circumspect.

But still as we move on, we create new relationships, always different from the ones that preceded them, but similar in the sense that they too, shall end. For if the universe teaches us a lesson, it is the lesson of finiteness. How every thing has a life, not matter how long or how small, and with every end comes a new beginning, and the beginning always also triggers the beginning of the particular end. From the Big Bang to the Big Crunch, and from a butterfly's birth to its demise.

Still we find ourselves reaching out into the big unknown, trying to create planned random collisions of minds and if we're lucky, souls. And we, stupidly even, create new monuments on the debris of the fallen castles of our hopes and desires. Fooling ourselves into thinking that we are wiser for the loss, while in reality, we're still the same, just a little more uncertain.

Of course with every end, comes a period of examination. Examining the affects in terms of the causes, and at times building up causes that would somehow heal the bruises left by the wreckage...

Sometimes I feel that I would just get caged in the moment of the latest speculation, that everything would seize to exist, and all possibilities of an end would be taken away by the surge of nothingness. And yet, no matter how hopeless it all feels, I do get out of the all consuming black-hole (thank you Babar for leaving me with this wonderful notion). I start to move again. The small tentative steps of an 80 year old, followed by the mad dash of the blind bull, into the matador's sword.

This poem would be a good end to this, it's by Walter Savage Landor.

You smiled, you spoke, and I believed,
By every word and smile deceived.
Another man would hope no more;
Nor hope I what I hoped before:
But let not this last wish be vain;
Deceive, deceive me once again!

New Things...for Louie

So Alina's been gone for nearly three weeks now, and I have, in a way settled into this new situation (with some help), as settled as you can get I guess. I guess we all have our own ways of settling down in the situations we find ourselves in, different yellow-brick roads leading to the Wizard, the biggest gimmick of them all!

First, let's make one thing clear. This is not the first time that I find myself in this situation. I have lived with just myself as company for longer periods of time. But that was usually on business trips, cooped up in an extended stay suite of one kind or another. There's this careless dehumanizing affect these suites have. Starting with the essentials, 4 big plates, 4 small plates, 4 bowls, 4 spoons, 4 forks, 4 knives, sachets of bad coffee, a coffee maker. It's like stepping into a little island, where your life has already been laid out for you. All you have to do is step inside. You can reach out and make contact, but it has to be fleeting, like you're just flirting with time, and there's nothing more to it.

Other times it's been with room-mates of one kind or another. That was more like building up a mock family, sharing chores, stories, and ambitions. A family that comes very close, and then disbands with the apartment.

This time, it was unique. Alina and I built a home here from scratch. Got everything from a sofa to a broom. Slowly and persistently we made the two rooms and the two baths and all the blank walls in between our own. Items were hung on the walls, and the sofas were sat in to leave our prints. Eventually the apartment became our own little planet, one that only the two of us cohabited, ventured out of, but always returned to.

Now that I was left alone in this little world of ours, I found myself in unfamiliar waters. A "home" in my book is defined by the people who give it life. And suddenly half the home was gone...on vacation! But what of the other (lesser) half? What does he do. The thought to move into an extended-stay suite came to me, but I rejected it as idiotic, childish, and plain and simple silly. Then I thought of sub-letting our second bedroom temporarily, but that somehow felt inappropriate as well.

So after a lot of thoughtful contemplation, I did what any sane man, in my situation, would do. I got a cat! He's an eleven-year old Chocolate Siamese. Looking at him, I feel that he's been through quite a lot, and yet he still has this weird sense of serenity about him.

A little history, Shamrock (that was his name) was put up for adoption as his last "head of household" developed allergies (she was okay with the four other cats she had), and the alternate would be a short life at the shelter before being gassed. Now Mr. Cat found himself in a situation he hadn't been in before, on the lookout for a new household in the years of his life where he would have expected to slow down, and take it easy. To me, it felt fated for him to become a part of our home. So he came into my life (and eventually Alina's life) last week.

I call him Louie, not the king, but more like "Louie, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship...", and he impresses me everyday. With his sense of cleanliness and hygiene, a hidden need for attention, which is never played out like say a puppy, but a mature reflection really. And the way he's bee sizing me up. At times I feel that he's been evaluating me for the most important job in my career. And then he impresses me with the grace he imparts, be it just strutting around within our home, or scratching the back of the sofa with his declawed paws, or just lying on the cushion besides me, as I show him Casablanca, so he could understand where his name comes from.

So this goes out to Louie, who helped me settle down into this new, albeit temporary, way of living.

My Blogirthday!

I just realized, this April, it was the 4th birthday of my Blog! Four fulfilling years and hopefully many more to come, in a world that is more at peace with itself.

Beginning with an "I"

I read a book recently, The Emperors Children; in it there was a notion that you shouldn't begin a letter with an I, because it is too self-indulgent, too self-involved, and too selfish. But the more I think about it, the more I disagree with the notion. I see the world through my eyes, live life through my existence, and interact with people mostly being myself (okay not mostly, but refreshingly - occasionally). Even a prodigious work of art, a colossal book, a great movie, all portrayals from thinkers, visionaries, are eventually translated through the "I" of my existence.

So if I avoid a beginning with an "I", then I am being dishonest in some way. Trying to mimic something I can never really fathom, for I am (for this life at least) bound by my existence. Shallow and paltry it maybe, it is the greatest book, movie, and piece of art put together in my little boat.

Mona Lisa's smile would never mean to me what it meant to Da Vinci, or even to the lady with the smile (smirk maybe), it would always be a reflection of my current thought and desires at that particular moment. Extracted from that moment, it may reflect boundless melancholy or uninhibited elation.

It's like seeing a great landscape, with that externalized sunset over an expanding ocean. The sunset itself isn't sad or serene, it doesn't feel. The ocean doesn't really speak to you, it is just what it does. It's just the reflection of the cycle of existence, the periodic time-table we live by or try to elude. It is us, this miserable branch of existence, caught in our own selfish pity that give feeling, even meaning to what is otherwise just an everyday thing. In the bigger picture, just as mundane as that guy chewing on his finger-nails, or Ahmed, that falafel cart owner on the 42nd. The sunset, the nail chewer, and Ahmed. It's just that the overall consciousness chose to romanticize the first, shun the second, and completely ignore the third.

Ironic that even our heroes, the leader, the visionary, the single mom of two who lives in the apartment opposite mine, our definitions of selflessness, of belief - they were and are, all of them, just as caught up in themselves. The leader leads as he cannot follow, the visionary envisions as he can't get off his ass and fry himself an egg. And the single mother...

Aah the single mother, the biggest miracle of them all, juggling two jobs, the perverted boss, the thankless teenager, the trusting toddler, and a partially senile mother. She does what she does because she doesn't have time to think, to breathe, to really see what happened. It has just become a challenge for her. God spited her, and now she's spiting back! The teenager screams, the boss grabs her ass, the car won't start, and her mom is out for a walk in the rain at 3 in the morning, but she just goes on. Shouts back at the teenager, ignores the boss, catches the bus, shuttles her mom back. Her anger feeds her, and her mistrust eggs her on.

All caught in their own worlds, go on in this unsynchronized symphony. Above all that, and most importantly, they are all interpreted, evaluated, misunderstood, lost, all in my I...so how can I, then begin my sentences, my letters, my thoughts with anything but an I?