Just Being Me

 

- by Zany

I miss the quiet,

The fresh air,

The still, clear, water

The sunrise so pure.

I miss the sunset, so serene

As it glides behind the plain.

 

I miss my inner peace

Both inside and out,

On my balcony, my street,

By the river, I feel the drought.

 

No libraries or books,

No siestas or naps,

No hugs, no kisses,

No rests, no respites…

 

I have forgotten to relax

I said, and I have forgotten more

I don’t know what hobbies are

What is a game, who keeps the score

 

Constantly…

Running, flipping, and fuming

No time for love, life or laughter.

What did I eat, did I even drink?

When did I sleep, was it even deep?

 

I don’t remember being…

Seeing, feeling, dreaming or screaming.

 

Feels like I have woken up

As if from a deep slumber

like a lazy cat or just a piece of lumber

 

I cried all night

And I stared all day

I mourned the loss of me today.

Amongst the screen, the laptop and the sheen

Just like that I felt quite clean

 

Now I shall stay

I shall be

I shall close my eyes, feel, and just lay

With chirping birds

rivers and lakes

The rustling leaves

The creeks, and the trees.

 

I shall be grateful for this day

When I can see, I can hear,

I can touch and I can smear.

 

I can feel…

The raindrops heal

All the tears that is yet to peal.

It will cleanse my heart,

And clear my mind,

So I can open my arms

To share my charms

To those lovely hearts

Scattered about – some near, some quite afar.

Besties and Hobbies

Who are your besties mamu? asked my little one who is not so little anymore. She has her besties at school. It used to be her one best friend, and now she has a couple of them. So clear cut, and simple, I thought. 

The question took me by surprise and I was lost in my thought as she blurted out the names of friends that she has heard of, those I speak to or speak about everyday. All I could say was yes, all of them are my besties in different contexts.

It took me back to the session with my counsellor recently when she asked - What are your hobbies? I thought these were questions for your slam book, children at school think about these things - Hobbies. Hobbies are done in free time. Is there any free time? what is this concept of free time? how is anyone ever free, and have time? 

I thought I had heard her wrong, did you actually ask about my hobby? i asked. Yes, she said, what do you like to do when you have time? I wore the look of - Seriously? you are acutually asking me about this look. I work, like 12 hours a day, what else would you like me to do? I did not say that but, put it as gently as i could to mean it. 

She nodded as if she could empathize, yes, i know, our work is such that we cannot even think of anything else. But now that you have some time in your hand, you should go back to your hobby. I asked her an example of what she meant by a hobby, just to buy time, I actually did. She said like reading, painting... 

I read, i said, i love to read. Actually i read so much on paper and on screen that my eyes have started to hurt. 

Well, i kept the latter part to myself. But i made that point very weakly that i read, but i was not sure it was a hobby. It was much more to be than just a hobby. I live and breathe books, but i also read lots of other stuff, emails, online materials, strategy papers, about organizations, children's book reviews to check whether something is okay for my kid. Where does reading as a hobby start and end, what demarcates reading for fun, and reading to stay updated, to learn, reading by choice and reading to earn? 

I used to sketch, I added as the pause grew longer. You should go back to sketching, she said, whatever that gets you to that relaxed mode when you can. Yes, i said, but a doubtful one. I did not see myself having the patience to sit down and sketch. I know that is the best time to go in my Flow, and the only time when i cannot say literally whether it is day or night outside if the curtains are drawn. But i think i have lost it. 

I will have to find it, but for the moment, i have lost it. 

 Besties. Hobbies. Games. 

 Finding the child in you. 

 Loving without reason. 

 Nostalgia of a world goneby, idealistic and happy. 

 But I am still hopeful that like my besties that I have in different contexts, I will find my hobbies, and will sketch and be in my flow not too far in the future.

getting back to my space

 Wow! 

I did not realize this space existed anymore but i browsed, because i had the energy to do so today and i found it. In a sense, it was finding my old self, a renewed self and my old space where i used to be myself. I have not read any of the old blogs today, i just want to cherish finding it first - relish the find little by little like dark chocolate. 

I am getting back to whatever i had forgotton or lost over the last decade and a half of getting adjusted to a very different life - getting married, having a kid, losing my father, balancing work and home and travel, and then the covid work-from-home situation really pulled the plug on me. I am now on a long break from work, seeing a counsellor and having conversations, untangling the knots - as some call it, taking life slow, yet trying to achieve what's possible every day. 

I decided to take a much longer break when i became aware one day that i had forgotten to relax and be on a holiday. My body and my mind had not been on a break ever. Even on holidays it would be to organize one of the many social events for the kids, parents, cousin or self. So even on long leaves, i would be organizing and managing something, else, planning and organizing a holiday. Holidaying with kids is project management. Please deny if you can. 

In the past two months, i have gone back to what i like best - being around nature, touching trees, noticing the color or leaves, being around lakes and rivers. I have gone back to listening to music, buying and reading books. I am yet to pick up sketching and writing. This might be one of my first tries of filling a page with my thoughts except the journal that i keep almost regularly for theraupatic purposes. 

I am surrounded by many books as i write, and the visuals give me a pleasure that nothing else does. To be surrounded by the great minds, the words waiting to speak to me, the writers on my cupboard amongs colorful book covers is a different connection. I thoroughtly enjoyed a book about this topic by Margaret Atwood recently. But I am never in a flow like when reading a novel and immersing myself in a different world. I am super thrilled when i connect to the author through their work, especially when it is autobiographical in nature and is a true story. The power of words never seize to excite me. 

I hope to make this a regular thing now. I am shy to share this widely like a "blog"... "blog". I would like to publish it so i can find it easily in the future. I might share the link with a few close friends. I would not mind if they don't read it, would be glad if they did and gave some feedback - positive or for improvement. 

May be i can fish our my next project or plan or ideas for the future through these writings and we can plot and plan together. 

It is great to be back in this space, and it does feel like really coming back and finding treasure as i could scroll down to 2006. 

Thanks for reading thus far and let us connect through the magical words! Ciao!

Their definition of life

From a  journal entry last month:

The rain has been beautiful since morning. When the droplets touch the dry, starved leaves and branches and roots of trees, it feels heaven. The quenching of thirst of a desert walking man.  And what other dharma does the clouds require than the blessings of these creatures, alive - just to see the rain.

The blissfully ignorant have constructed concrete cement buildings with cubicles in them: hundreds of cubicles which have been lighted so well that even when the dark clouds gets the city gloomy, their cubicles will feign sunshine. Hundreds of applicants get through “tough” tests and interview. Why? To toil in these cubicles from 9 am in the morning to late into night, six days a week and they think they love it. They shout over their ever ringing phones, they lose their temper, get irritated and use swear words. When they get a deal done, they are proud and think they are smart. Of course they are smart. They make a lot of money. They buy even bigger houses with air-conditioned rooms and even bigger air-conditioned cars with bed like seats. They tread in their soft carpets, then in their soft cars and tip toe to their carpeted cubicles. Every evening or so, they go up the escalators to buy their essentials, come back in their comfy car seats to their soft carpets at home. And for them, they are the luckiest, the richest, and the most happy people in the world.

When the routine is done every day of the year, every year of the decade, it becomes the life style for hundreds of cubicles in hundreds of companies and it builds cities and nations for whom soft carpets, comfy seats are the definition of life. 

Unlearning experiences

The maid might not be here for long. She is of little use while feeding the baby, anyways. She is a great help with washing her clothes, cleaning the kitchen etc. But what I really need is someone to stand by the baby to feed and cajole her when I am off to French classes - three days a week for three hours. That is a difficult prospect with her, especially since the little one has not taken up to her too good. She is not acclimatized to ktm and it’s ways of life. She is from a village and she remains so in her behavior etc. I respect that. It is not that I don’t like people from villages. But when we are used to a certain way of life, we require that of the person who is to work with us. That is all. If we went to the village and dictated our way of things, that would be detested there too. That’s about the same equation I am trying to draw. I don’t see anything biased or untoward there. It is not about inequality or disparity. It is just about how one is brought up, like caste or your favorite pastime. One does not need to live with an opposite caste (if something of that sort exists) or some unlikable pastime. It’s your choice, not about respect.

There was a question raised in our last class by the instructor. He asked if anyone kept a journal and I said yes, I did. Everyday?! He asked a little aghast. I said, as much as I can. That is because there is this section that we are dealing with in class that teaches us to write journals – in the past tense basically and we have an assignment related to it too.

Being with fuchi and learning French: two unlearning experiences for me. Both very fulfilling.

Facebook statuses, twitter updates, linkedIn updates what else? These move your life everyday because that’s how you get connected to your brother seven seas across, keep in touch with your friend, get the world news and what happened in your town. It is also a medium of getting knowledgeable and I find it intellectually stimulating when I can see what some revered author of mine thought that day and posts it as an update on twitter. Naseem Nicholas Taleb, Margaret Atwood, Manjushree Thapa, Paul Krugman – all are on twitter and I am following them. These give me a chance to have some level of connection with them which when reading their books definitely affect me.

Dad and their generation are never going to get it and thus, they think they do not like it. But if they had it their way, they would never deny it. Like, if I asked him if he could have S. Radhakrishnan or Swami Vivekananda twit to him every day or Pandit Nehru give facebook status updates, would he deny them? He simply would reject to hear such an absurd idea, gone is gone! Or rather bygone is bygone. But he would deny to understand a parallel for us. When NNT gives an opinion about what happened this morning, when Atwood says she is looking forward to Canada day, it stirs some emotions in their readers definitely. It’s too much for dad and the like when reverence and deep respect is the only emotion they had for their authors.

List of books to read

I have a list of books to read in my mind. They are matter of factly stacked up here and there. Few are autobiographies - Einstein by Isaacson, i remember that one - due from last year. Then i have a series on Nepal that i missed earlier - books by Harka Gurung and Manjushree Thapa, and the history of the country.

I have lists that include novels recommended and gifted by brother and friends.

I have my own collection that i buy out of interest or out of someone's must read list.

And i think the library has a good collection, which i bring and return without sometimes even turning the page. The guilt is there of course.

Online journals, articles, interviews - is what takes up the time that we had not factored into our "reading time". Once you put the mind to it even twitter, facebook and surfing seems as much intellectual as pondering upon a few pages of philosophy.

Read at night, before going to bed has been the trend. 

A balanced personality

In grade six, we had a punjabi teacher by the name of Ajit Singh. In my report card, he had not given a tick either in extrovert or introvert, but had written in his cursive writing 'Balanced'. My dad had been highly impressed, I had not understood its significance then. This post is not about my balanced personality, I highly doubt it is so now.

My concern or rather my mood at the moment is to think about balance in the intellectual and the practical side of the personality. I have increasingly found that those who are of an intellectual bent of mind, who can do maths in their head, think non-linear, be stark creative are usually not practical. These people shy away from bargaining for a few thousand rupees while they did be stuck with the pride of not paying for parking. Penny wise, pound foolish. The practical aspects of life and living, earning and feeding, sustaining and surviving simply don't enter their periphery of thought, and while forced into this family life practicality, they try to think of models around each chore.

The 'other' kind of people are the practical hard bargainers, multi-taskers. This bunch knows where to get a good bargain for a cheap and fast laptop, buy a lasting pair of shoes and that no.7 paint brush you have been looking for all over town. They know where to spend their bucks, how to hold a conversation and talk, basically.

My question however is, is introvert and extrovert related to these personality types? No. I have seen introvert people who are extremely practical. Does the left side and the right side brain got anything to do with it, leaving aside the debate that the left and the right side is just a myth? Maybe Type A and Type B personality types that is studied in B-schools? I don't know.

But god! a little bit mix of both practicality and hard core idealistic intellectualism would really help the world albeit an inclination to one type of personality can't be helped.

Alive

Does one hold more power over people on being dead?
Well, its a philosophical one, and a psychological one, well, its also an ontological one, perhaps? Or perhaps, there is one subject dealing just with it of which I am blissfully ignorant.

You somehow feel that your dead aunt knows more about you and your situation and your thoughts than when she was alive, don't you?
You somehow feel your grandma knows how much you loved her or how you felt about her now that she is up their floating in the pink clouds.
What is the funda really in being dead? And its answer lies in being so, quelle chance!

Death has been vilified and horrified, it has been humored and joked about. But whatever, its significance and imminence looms just as large. Its like the balloon that pops out for you to crash on, the only difference is, the balloon of death has been popped out along with your birth and waiting for you all along. Its just sooner or later that you bounce into it head long.

Modern medicine avert death of many people to a large extent - we live longer today than a decade back, than two decades back. Modern medicine save lives at birth - less of us die during child birth than a decade back, two decades back. Modern medicine has made life more congested on the planet thus misuse of resources, thus global warming?

Death brings vacuum - in families, in relations. For some, we only think of a particular relative when they are dead. Its like the sentence, don't think of a lady in red dress. The moment you say that you visualize a lady in red dress, although the sentence forbids you to do so. Death makes the relative you lost more alive.

In the last two decades, I met my uncle a few times, we avoided each other at common dinner parties, hardly nodded our heads to each other, and I did not think about him. But his sudden death a few months back brought back floods of memory and he is constantly alive in my  mind. His absence made his presence in my mind prominent. I had never been introduced to his two daughters and I had never visited the house where he lived but once in the last two decades. His absence made entry into his life easier, the relations around him became more alive and I was surprised by this fact - surprised to silence. Indeed, I have not been able to register it until this moment - how death can be so alive and how absence can be so fulfilling.

tapai lai aile kasto cha? (so how are you now?)

tapai lai aile kasto cha? (so how are you now?)

The above statement seems to hold true for anybody, anytime in Kathmandu these days. Ask anybody, so how are you now? It refers to the fact that you know about their last ailment which was not too long ago and that you are concerned and ready to listen to their woes. They will start off with their stuff then.

Every other person you meet is ill or had been just out of a bed ridden ailment. Is it the weather? Is it the water? the dust? the humidity? the everything? This city has definitely been listed as one of the most polluted cities, one of the most expensive cities, but is there such indicator as one of the most sick cities where most population is ill most of the time? These back-pain ridden, head ache stricken, stomach upset population is found in offices, at factories, garages, shops, doing their daily morning walks, evening strolls, afternoon stretches and the life goes on. God save Kathmandu!

As if the recent depiction of an earthquake for Kathmandu was not enough, as if the imminence of a deadly liquidation is not enough, the drainage system showed its colors a few days back when the gullies and major streets of the city were inundated. The daily cartoon which showed a police officer listening to a complaining motorcyclist, both under chest deep rain fall - "Not, my parked motorbike, the one I was riding got lost!"

The hovering clouds at dusk before the incessant bout of rains:

and today...

There is a new lady in the house to take care of the kiddo. I don't know how long she will last, what she will demand or what her complaints would be in the days to come. But as of now, she is good. Experience: raising her own two sons, she is a finicky cleaner (good for me). And she can work (hard) and on her own (without much guidance). And that makes it a perferct combi. The only question is: how long will she last? My only complaint: She makes pathetic rotis. I don't know if she can cook other stuff well. But she is a quiet being, who works with her hands.

For Kathmanduties, there should be a catalog on how to manage your maid that she will last/stay with you for a longer time.
Rule No. 1: Don't treat her like a maid; they are human beings, have the basic courtesy
Rule No. 2: (Genuiune) Respect! the older generation especially have forgotten that respect doesnot cost you anything except your ego. And the respect should be genuiune. Fake respect like fake smile across the telephone can be felt on the other end, being genuiune is important.
Rule No. 3: Listen to their demands. Listen to their demands. Yes, i repeated that twice because we hear it but don't really listen to what they are saying. Find a solution to their problems if it can be solved. But at least give it an empathetic listening, it matters and it counts.
Rule No. 4: Please understand, they are there to help YOU, please do not treat the situation as other way round as if you have salvaged THEM. They have enough job opportunities, for sure.

4 rules are good enough for today? well, the more experienced can add on to that list if they have a successful retain rate.

We are not alone

We used to be friends. We used to meet and have coffee or ride on the bumpy bagmati bridge on scooters. Then we started meeting with the loves of our life by our side. We had fun. Now, we still meet, without the husbands but definitely we are not alone, we meet with a 2 year old by our side or a three year old complaining to go out shopping for his favorite toy. But we definitely meet and I love that part. And the true Aquarians relish every bit of friendship.

Liste de trois

1. Decided on a laptop to buy, phew - eagerly awaited now
2. Found out a way to continue my French class - next level
3. Clean and organized room and thought - feels fresh - yay!

Patriotic feedings

What's most worrisome is that Nepal lacks thought leadership than anything else. Okay, the politicians have ruined the country - they are a pathetic bunch. Thus a new breed of society has come to breed - the educated, the aware, the more brave than they used to be. This consists of journalists, writers, civil society members, their wives and husbands who work for various NGOs and INGOs around the city, few MBA graduates who think they have found a ground to sustain themselves doing a patriotic job, a group of Nepalis living abroad. These are very good writers who have made their mark, energetic young journalists, A rated graduates, and hardworking people, but among all this, where is the thought leadership? They have energy, passion, the will, the modern techniques of social networking and advocacy.

Where is the one inspiring leader whose thought process is so strong, so revolutionary and inspiring that the whole nation is behind him. For a revolution that shall change the nation does it not require someone like Gandhi, Martin Luther King or Lincoln, or a strong personality like Clinton, Obama or Indira Gandhi or Vivekananda? Sometimes, it seems that intellect of that level is missing in the country. Sorry, I take that back. Even though, intellect and personality at that level might be there, are they willing to take the leadership stand, or more importantly, are they capable enough to take such leadership stand? Do they have that capability to inspire the masses, lead a country full of people? First, deep self study, reflective serious thought process is deeply lacking about the societal problems which is rampantly polluted I would say by global forces and the superfluous education system in the country, especially in my generation.

Thus, howsoever positive I try to be about the positive changes that small factions of people try to being by getting together a few hundred, or a few thousand of us linked to the social networking sites, or hooked to the Internet, or around the cities, my heart sinks at the inevitable short sightedness and futility of it all. But maybe, amongst these programs and such rally of cries, something very strong might emerge that will change the face of this nation - is my pray.

What might work?
I call it the campaign style. Well, I just thought of it. But this might actually be the solution, why not. Get a few agendas backed by strong research, select a charismatic leader who can whole heatedly campaign for the agenda like the presidential campaign in the USA, form a campaign team, get sponsors and run a country wide rally - touch the hearts of people, be genuine, go whole heatedly. If you run changing the country and the society as a side business, you will only create an image for yourself but no change in the society. If a change or to stay in the spirit of Steve Jobs, if a dent has to be made, one should pursue the national interest with the spirit of a martyr and nothing else. Every other attempt nears hypocrisy in my opinion.

Three things list

Here are 3 things that I did today -
1. I joined French class that starts from the 21st of this month
2. I bought a book for one of my friends after a long long time
3. I changed the look of my blog after a long long time!

Phew!

This day

What one expects after one is jobless is at least a few blog posts, or not!

Here are three facts after being jobless - 

1. I am no less busy

2. Life is much more fulfilling doing the things that I just love doing

3. Wow, the sheer joy of having a free shoulder

Ahem

"One is busy either experiencing life or recording it. To do both, one has to be a writer." - Zanie

readings

# Emphasizing access versus ownership isn't just more sustainable, it helps ease friction from the differences between rich and poor.

# We all need to be rethinking how we sustain rising middle classes with rising incomes in a warming world, otherwise the convergence of warming, consuming and crowding will mean we grow ourselves to death.

(Two points to think about from "China needs its own dream" by Thomas L. Friedman in today's NY times)

Feline Grace

I was brooding about cats the other day. Yes, cats, those that meow, you know four legged creatures with extra large size whiskers on them.  Why cats, you would say because I see them everyday – loitering around on the staircase, outside the kitchen, on the landing, inside the kitchen sometimes, trying to reach the top of the waste bin on their two hind legs stretched as far as possible – they are one elastic being for sure. They would fall off from the top of buildings during their jump yet would spring up and run off in a jiffy – that’s how they are made up – like rubber balls. They are so capable of bouncing back – unlike  a deer with those stiff and clumsy, uncomfortable and brittle looking antlers. I bumped into an an article yesterday about glowing green cats – during a research on AIDS. Well the article went on to say that apart from humans and chimpanzees, cats were the only other animal that had the potential to take on an AIDS virus on them – cats all around the world. Well, that’s a fact for sure. It was an uncomfortable fact there, given that we have so many stray cats scattered all around the place.

Cats are not a domesticated keep where I live. They are a sign of bad omen traditionally so nobody would touch them or would like to have them around, forget about letting them in the kitchen or in your living room, near the fire, comfy together – like a scene from one of those Blyton novels. Cats are related to death, somehow. By this standard, no cats are welcome around our neighbourhood. Earlier they used to sneak into kitchens from here and there and everywhere given the old structures with lots of (loop) holes. But given all new constructions these days, all houses have been replaced or refurbished with new ones taking particular care that all sides are sealed with no openings whatsoever even for the mosquitoes that are so rampant in their right season, breeding on the stagnant pools of water along the Bagmati river and entering homes in scores even if slightest hole is left unattended . So cats around the place started with their long forced fasting  - no food led to no energy, lean cats, with ever more sad eyes.

Mom has her own theory, so she feeds them everyday with whatever leftover comes around the kitchen, which she makes sure it does to the liking of these  feline creatures – some meat maybe, some milk and rice, curd etc. etc. So the mother cat along with her kittens – four, sometimes five wait for the feast. So much for feline grace!

I am right here

1.30 am, a stormy night. I have been awake for the past one hour to the sound of rain and thunderstorm. When the noise gets down, I can hear the tick, tick, tick of the clock getting louder by the second. The door click-clicks with the wind on its lock nearby, and another a little further away, a subtle fight with whatever's holding it.

The extinct 'Scrat' from Ice Age gives me his vacant stare from one corner. I habitually tap various pages on the pad - jump from one article to next, from one status update to the next - get bored and keep it aside. Am I thirsty? Should I reach out for the water? The light flickers ever so lightly. I shiver, a tiny breeze has seeped in through the hinges. His warm hand falls on me. He has been fast asleep. Eyes still closed, in deep slumber, he gentles gives his 'I am right here' tap. I smile and switch off the light to join him in his dreams.

jumbled up

A lazy Saturday afternoon is hard to find. It is hard to treasure it for long when i find one.

A visit to the mall - always hurried - scurried - in a mess, the brightly lit shelves, rows and rows of colorful packaging whirl past as the shopping cart whooze to the corner of your find.

The stories of those who walk by on the streets - the beggar, the street vendor, the fruit seller, those group of loud Indian visitors, lost dazed rich people trying to find coca cola - staring at them from your window and fancying up your own story for each one of them - what leisure were those now you realize.

I tasted my tea today - darjeeling leaves - with its rich fragrance. It had long been i tasted food. I gulp them down every now and then several times a day. I measure my water for enough intake - one red steel bottle on my left hand, pouring it down my throat - my eyes on the screen, my right palm on the mouse. Am i supposed to taste water? I wonder.

I lived for 15 minutes last week. I was in a cab to work. I closed the stack of A4 size print outs on my lap, the presentation material for the day - closed my eyes, brought my senses alive and watched, I listened, I smelled. I saw the droplets on the window of the cab - blurring my visuals of outside. I felt droplets on my bare arm that had managed their way in. I smelled the rain. I smelled the moisture inside the cab. The thudding of rain drops on the roof. The splatter on the roofs nearby. The incessant chaotic car honks, motorbikes that splashed waves around - the raincoats, the umbrellas, the squeezing under umbrellas, the smiles, the shouts, wet hair, muddy folded pants, the potholes, the rain boots, the whites turned brown on school children.

I suddenly missed school, i missed college, i missed mom, i missed a cup of tea.

But the days roll on. I still measure my water intake. Try hard to make in time for work. Balance it out well. Cook, wash, read, correct, edit, send, write,click, edit, call, shout, click, decide, edit, read, send, think, click, call, frustrate, write, gulp down, edit, click, send, stand, speak, opine, call, click, walk - rush, call, reply, call, listen, click, note down, translate, gulp down, edit, opine, speak, call, cook, wash.....

and the days roll on.