27.09.2009 (A Day Before My Birthday)

Everyone is celebrating Navratri and the atmosphere is filled with the ‘garba’ and dance and music every night ; perhaps the greatest display of mass involvement any where in the world.

It is a moment of festivity in the Jews too I believe and then later in the month, Halloween. It is not mere coincidence that different faiths celebrate at the same time of the year. Beliefs are different but the reasons the same. Dear Lord, Allah, Bhagwan just make it such that we always remain together in celebration, in peace and in harmony. Let us not send signals of fear to each other. Let us all respect and embrace each other in happiness. Please remove the ugliness from within us towards the other. Help us to touch one another as companions. Get us to rid ourselves of hate and evil. Fill us voluntarily with understanding, forgiveness and love and remain with us all the time to help and guide us.

Complicated lives come from complicated living. We are our own culprits. We love to design our own complication and then when we have no solution we complicate it further by seeking external recourse. They that provide guidance and succor from our intertwined issues, lead the best lives. They are professionals that have studied human nature and its behavior. The unknown and the magical has always fascinated us.

What does the future hold for me. Will I be successful and prosper, free from illness and adversity. Will those that become family be in health and safe. How long will I live. There isn’t much more that we desire to know before hand. And there are elements in society that thrive on the needs of others. They appear before me from time to time. Not of my accord but of the desire of others who’s company I may keep occasionally. Their dress and face bear divineness. They move and speak in measured tones ; they are after all on a personal call with HIM. They look deep into our systems. They have the power to change and predict and profess and impress. They have trained well. Studied the options of their craft. For in the troubled world we live in they have mastered the art of putting you face to face with the unknown and the magical. And when you bring in belief … your meal is ready to be served, cooked and baked to perfection.

-- Vinit Vijay .

26.09.2009

Messages pour in for the Navratri festival, some known and mostly unknown. To those that come unknown, my acknowledgements and wishes. Those of the known have already been addressed. Festivities begin now with the ‘dandiya’ dances en masse. Large open areas shall be converted into massive dance floors and thousands shall move to the sounds of popular hits of the day to the rhythm of the ‘garba’. The young couples dressed in traditional costumes of Gujarat holding the dandiya and striking them with opposite numbers in a most intricate dance movement. The constant clashing of the sticks creating an incredible atmosphere of happy revelry.

So much variety and color and movement in all our traditional dances. Just unimaginable. Long may the festivals exist and long may the atmosphere of music laughter and song prevail in all our lives.

Traveling out from home always puts in you a sense of disruption. It is home and things are in order and routine, when suddenly we are putting things in bags that we feel shall be necessary on our way out and in different environs. At times we are hesitant to move. Its unsettling the settled. Once out and in strange and newer climes, it takes a while to adjust to the facilities. As time goes by the mind and the body adjusts and then gets comfortable. Soon enough the same procedure of moving out and back to the original shall occur and similar feeling of disruption shall take over. The place and location that felt odd and different, now assumes a position of some permanence and shifting about again conjures some resistance. It happens all the time, with all of us. The human is built psychologically I think to remain anchored in one place. Shifting about from place to place disturbs his nature. Is it any wonder then that some of the most common disputes emanate from disputes over possession. Possession of land, possession of territory, of position. All the wars in the world came about from this most singular factor - someone wanted more and someone refused to part with it. Being settled is by nature our nature. We desire a space which we can call ours. It does not matter what the dimensions be, it should be devoid of another’s presence and claim. It is ‘our’ home, ‘our’ room, ‘my’ car, ‘my’ school …

And once the designation is complete, our undiluted attention is directed towards it. You support a team in any sport and it becomes your obsession. It is our team. And no matter where you are and belong, our team when it plays gets our support.

Caste, creed and religion do the same to us. We don’t come with it written on our heads. It is told to us and we follow. We try to find those that are ‘ours’ and discriminate against those that are ‘theirs’. Simply because we possess one and not the other.

When I put greetings for Eid, or Navratri, Rosh Hashanah and Durga Puja I am sometimes acknowledged for giving position to respective festival, in a manner which expresses at times, surprise. But just because I am from different faith does not bind me in not wishing the other. I am moved by my, sorry ‘our’, Ef our FmXt when they dispel difference and come together in acknowledgement to the festival of the other.

And if this little group of committed family members can do it without provocation and dispute, why cannot several others. Look how we rally together in the others need for prayer, when they are in distress. Look how we all come together in the achievements of the other. Look how many more of us converse with each other, than when we started off. Look how much empathy there is in the troubles and anxieties of one who is unseen and unknown.

But look how disturbed and unconnected the world around us is.

If we can light a small candle, hold a gentle flower, whisper an affection towards the other, what a wonderful world we could create.

23.09.2009

There are many moments in our lives which are governed by realization. Soon after we are born we realize who our parents are. We call them Mother and Father. They are the ones we see the most often and the ones that respond to us when we call them. They shelter us, feed us, educate us, clothe us, look after us. A little later we realize who we are - a boy or a girl. We realize that being a boy is different form being a girl. Our anatomy is different, we look and behave differently. Then as we grow, we realize our status and our faith. We are poor or middle class or rich. We follow a religion and we realize we are different from some of the groups that we move in. We realize our strengths, both physical and mental. Moving on we realize friends and attachments, associations and acquaintances. We realize our closeness to some and our distance from others. Around the same time we realize our physicality - our looks, our bodies, our negatives and positives. And as we step into the world as independent souls we realize what the world is all about and indeed what life is.

Most of this is a natural process. A process that nature leads us into. But there is one that we fail to realize. We fail often to realize our limits. Having started, when to stop. When to stop consumption, excesses, indulgence. I believe that those that can accomplish this very innocuous yet most treasured value of mankind, can and should be able to conduct their lives without the pain that generally accompanies all those that do not.

I feel it is time for me to realize my limits. That is it. No further explanation, no reasons. I must know on my own, I would not need the impressions of others ; their suggestions and their advice. I am a grown man. I have lived and worked for a substantial number of years. The dawn of my realization has appeared and I must reconcile and accept it as must any other of my age. To further ignore it in the heat of ambition. To bolster it with the arrogance of a pride that may only exist within yourself, and not outside.