Wierd. Awkard. Uncomfortable.

Three words to describe my encounter with my ex-boss.

Although I was okay, I am yet again left with a feeling of oh-no-this-is-not-the-end.

Why can't we end this human drama of life in something other than death?

As the Sarod was played, the notes lifted the air. The cool wind blew the dried leaves up into the crimson sky. I had goosebumps. Oh! what a feeling. I smiled, closed my eyes and slipped away. Bismillah. Beauty.Love.Life.

Love. Truth. Peace. Guaranteed

On bended knee is no way to be free
lifting up an empty cup I ask silently
that all my destinations will accept the one that's me
so I can breath

Circles they grow and they swallow people whole
half their lives they say goodnight to wive's they'll never know
got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul
so it goes...

Don't come closer or I'll have to go
Holding me like gravity are places that pull
If ever there was someone to keep me at home
It would be you...

Everyone I come across in cages they bought
they think of me and my wandering
but I'm never what they thought
got my indignation but I'm pure in all my thoughts
I'm alive...

Wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere
underneath my being is a road that disappeared
late at night I hear the trees
they're singing with the dead
overhead...

Leave it to me as I find a way to be
consider me a satelite for ever orbiting
I knew all the rules but the rules did not know me
guaranteed...

_IntotheWildSoundtrack_Guaranteed

cooking

Never. I mean never would I venture into the kitchen except to eat. I have always been the lazy-ass types who only enjoy eating and nothing else. The kind that sits at the dining table and complains that the food is not tasty enough. Worse still, throw food tantrums. I was an enfant terrible. Little did I know that there are some joys which are just meant to be shared. Feeding the loved is so underrated. That is what nourishes life. And little fools like me spend quarter of a life just trying to discover what it is.

I went for a classical musical concert yesterday. And it was magical. It is in those moments of pure joy that I find myself. Elevated among the soaring skies, drifting in the flooded rivulets, floating in the flight of birds, grounded in the endless green fields that touch the horizon. For all I care, I could be the full-blooded instrument of a Sarod.

It's Holi and I'm here in my little hovel trying to be happy. Sometimes, happiness is never a choice you give yourself. For the most part, it's easier not being happy. You can always count on the world to bring you down but to count on yourself to never let you down is hard.  The unhappiness of just being is what happiness is not. So to be what my natural disposition demands me to be is what I am striving to seek. Fight not being happy just to be happy. How hard could that be? The joker smiles at me. Only he knows the answer:)

I want to be a homemaker. I want to cook delicious meal and see a satiated smile. I want to have a clean home that brings a sparkle to the eyes. I want to decorate the walls and make them breathe with life. I want to give shape to my life.

Japan's tragedy is incomprehensible in my head. The scale and magnitude of the disaster numbs me. I cannot understand what it would be like to have waves crashing down from the skies and sweep my world away or have the ground beneath my feet give away. I just cannot. Peace be upon departed souls and those kindred souls still alive. I pray for your peace.

In the end, it is only me waiting to be found. And when that moment comes when the spotlight of the universe is on me, I will run. For in that moment, I will be free. But till then I wait.

I worry about home. To hear my parents quavering voice on the telephone telling me how wretched they feel with their existence makes me feel helpless. It's the same old sad story. When does it change? It doesn't. May be I will change, to cope better with the situation. But I don't. I only grow wary of this. The hope that springs eternal is what is taking its toll on me. Maya, an illusion. What is there to hope for- better day, better pay?? No, none of it. Let me not wait for Godot. Cause there is none.

One thing I can definitely say about myself having lived for three months on my own is that I am responsible. I doubted that for a while but I know I am responsible for whatever shit happens in my life. Own your life, that what i keep telling myself. The only pillar of support is yourself. That does not mean I am superhuman bearing the world on my shoulder. Being responsible is not a burden, it a possibility you create for yourself. And with that possibility comes immense freedom borne from love. It allows you to crash and burn but rise and shine every day and in every moment.

At times I feel like I'm slipping away. Like I do not belong here. As the window panes flashes images of the world beyond, I sit and wonder where am I and ask myself what if? The answer is never clear and then I sink in oblivious thoughts. I should just give up this psychobabble. Bye

I really wonder what it is to be truly sensitive to the context we live in. In a way, it recognises our own limits to knowledge and understanding what is best for 'the other'. It means to be attuned to needs other than 'the self'. So when development practitioners and experts talk of sensitive development, they must acknowledge that the development they espouse stems from their own experience of what it means in their life. It can never be a benchmark to assess others. In doing that, one needs to be sensitive to one's own assumptions, biases, prejudices that make up one's own perception about life. Many a time we lose sight that everything around us is filtered through a lens we wear. This lens colours our views on life, people, places and things. It is important to be sensitive to that lens we wear when seeing the world around us. Sensitive development recognises the limits of externally-imposed ideas of "the good life". It says that while this works for me, it may not work for you, for only you know what works best for yourself. Respecting that is difficult, for we all know that we remain fallible fools who believe that life begins and ends with us. When we are really little spokes circling that wheel of life.   

Eat this

I'll be post-feminist in a post-patriarchy world, okay?.