Just enough

Known roads, a few cozy homes, silent corners, familiar faces, the more familiar smiles, a few loved people and yes of course for each of what I just listed just the ones where warmth run through the veins. Recently that is what I have been silently gravitating towards. Not that change challenges me, I still accept it and wade through it while still managing to maintain a fine balance. I do it quite well too. But do I like it, do I seek it, definitely no. I love to work, I love being busy, but do I chase. I cannot say completely no longer, but yes I chase a lot less. I try to make a mark a lot lot less and yes I try to enjoy what I do a lot lot more. Do I make myself a priority, yes a little more than I historically have. Family still stays at the core of all I do, but still I manage those little "me only" pockets in the course of the day. And each time I do, I wonder why did I not start this long back. 

All say that this is a part of aging, of slowing down, but I tend to disagree. I call it experience, of being able to adorn that discerning lens that filters out the glare and the shimmer. It lets just the plain white calming light sieve through, in a way that disillusions darkness, in a way that it is just enough to keep my room lit. And somehow I realize my heart wants no more. 

 

Eternally grateful

Yesterday, I read a blog by a dear friend, someone who inspires me in more ways than one. But yesterday, he inspired me in a way I hadn't expected: to start writing again. Caught in the chaos of daily life, often weary from the unrelenting demands of midlife, I’ve long been trapped in this cycle of “I want to write, but I just don’t have the time.” And yet, writing remains one of the few things that truly brings me joy.

So today, this note is for him, along with a promise to myself: to post at least one blog each week.

Life, more often than not, feels like a freshly cooked bowl of noodles. Long, tangled stories unfolding all at once. Some strands seem endless. It’s hot and steaming, calling out to be devoured before it goes cold. In each slurp, there’s warmth, contentment and a longing for more  - all at once. We know it won’t last forever, but we savor it anyway, as if it just might.

In the midst of all these feelings as we move on with life, I think most of us, myself included, forget to pause and truly savor the good things. We're always rushing. Running. Often without knowing where or why.

This blog is about one such moment last week, a moment made special by a colleague who feels more like an older sister than a co-worker.

I had arrived late at the office and was just settling into my day, flustered, frazzled, and frankly a little worn down. She walked past my desk. I didn’t even have the presence of mind to greet her properly. All I managed to say was how overwhelmed and exhausted I felt. Then I rushed off to a meeting that lasted an hour.

When I returned, there it was - a fresh, hot cup of coffee, brewed with a few secret tricks only she knew, using the modest magic of our humble coffee machine. It was her signature blend, something only she could make.

In the midst of that tough, hurried day, that one thoughtful gesture - the coffee, the care, made me pause. I sat down, took a breath, and let myself enjoy it. That small moment brimmed my eyes with tears of joy. It reminded me that someone noticed, someone cared.

And just like that, everything felt a little lighter. The burden I had been carrying suddenly seemed like part of a meaningful day, rather than something to simply get through.

Sometimes, all it takes is a small act of kindness to turn someone’s day around. 

A huge thanks to the two of you....

---

I still believe

I traverse the path, often stumbling to the ground, 

Not once, but recurrently,in ways profound. 

Yet, a force within rekindles my strength, 

To rise again and tower an immeasurable length. 

 

I cling to belief, an unwavering flame, 

In yearning's embrace, where dreams stake their claim. 

With unyielding effort, I forge ahead to earn, 

Aspirations on which my ambitions burn. 

And then all the stumbling seems like a pause, 

In there to test me, my belief and my cause. 

 

From shadows of fears, courage I distill, 

In sickness, I unravel the art of aging with skill. 

Amidst duties, I learn what distance is, 

In sorrow the quest for existence builds. 

I still believe, in yearning, I will find my way, 

Endeavors persist and dreams illuminate my day. 

With unyielding effort, I forge ahead to earn, 

Aspirations on which my ambitions burn.

I still meet her each day

I met her on the “other side of the street”. We were both crossing the road through the huge traffic of a Bangalore main road. She was just ahead of me. In a hurry I stepped on her sandals. She was just about to fall when I held her back and at the same time held the entire traffic to a screeching halt on that busy day in a very busy hour. Her sandals had broken and she was a little shaken if not hurt. I helped her cross the street, seated her on the pavement of a lazy shop that was not yet open and ensured she was fine before I could move on with my business of the day. But a glance at her and suddenly there was a sense of remorse if not guilt that arose in me. She looked like a daily wage earner whose valuable shoe piece I had just impaired. The faintest shades of gray colored her scanty hairline, she had a hunch so slight that it blurred my ability to classify her as able or disabled, she wore a bright orange and pink saree more like a modern midi skirt with a quarter of her skinny legs and hardened feet still visible and a blouse that could contain two times her. She had an oval face with skin a shade lighter than wheatish, beetel stained teeth that were like both present and absent, more like the roll call status in a local village school on a rainy day. I took her to the nearby cobbler who declared the sandals dead beyond repair. I hurriedly got her a new pair and set forth with my day leaving her behind while she kept on shouting “thank you thank you” for as long as she was audible. I rushed on towards the auto rickshaw stand. As always I was already late to work and had managed to miss my scheduled public transport and shelled out all the ready cash I had for her. The day has begun with a mess. From that day on I would notice her everyday crossing the streets with me and waiting at the same bus stop. We exchanged smiles. Slowly midst our waits for our respective buses she would talk to me. I am unsure if I could really call that a conversation for it was a one sided exchange. The rule was simple, she would talk and talk all through those ten to fifteen minutes wait and I would passively listen with a few intermittent smiles to reassure her that I was still listening. She always talked and talked and she talked of everything else but her present day and the immediate past. I had quite grown so used to her low pitched tales of yesteryear valor. But what drew me to her was that despite the seeming fragility I had seen in her the vigor to live in little ways. She would talk about her husband who owned a flock of auto-rickshaws, how he had grown from zilch to impressive, her son who owned a petite grocery shop, of the brisk sales there, of her innovative ideas that had helped his shop thrive, her daughter in law who would help all others in the family and her grandson in whom their soul lay. She would often mention the cutlets and curries her daughter in law made and dutifully served, the reverence her son held for her and how her grandson pampered her with hugs and kisses. She would never name her husband but just say how well he cared for her. I would habitually utter “You seem old, just rest. You have a nice family”. But she always said “I need a busy life. Why burden them when I can help.” Not long had passed and then one other similar day she seemed inquiringly quiet, dazed and dull as if in a trance. We exchanged just a wee smile and were just about to cross the street when she fell down with a earsplitting thud on the floor, like a strong log of stiffened and beaten wood that just once again lost its life. Everyone looked, a few waited and fewer still arched to lend a hand. We carried her to one side and sprinkled some water on her face. She took a while but recovered. By then sans me it was soliloquy for her again, the rest had left. I offered to call her husband, her son or her daughter in law. She denied and moved on quick and fast like nothing had happened just proclaiming aloud “I will straight head home. Do not worry!!” I am unsure what kind of concern seized me and compelled me to follow her silently. I just wanted to be sure she was safe. I pursued her down to her habitat and waited across the street. She knocked and out came an old man drunk and shuddering and shouting. He definitely was concerned but not for her but the days wage she had lost and had come back home so early. She hit her so hard that she fell back. And there I saw the truth of her life – she epitomized it then. Tired, crouching and crying she sat on. I just left the place unseen and unheard. I still meet her everyday and she still tells me her stories. But now, I listen to them more attentively. May be for her those moments are the little gateways to the life of her dreams.

In that city of lofty clouds driving high on the breezy dreams Happiness stopped for a moment seeking definition seeking meaning And somewhere in that moment you were born and me reborn What is it, I am yet to define – happiness, ecstasy, content, frustration, patience – I am yet to know. All I can say is today ‘you are the reason I smile’.

Few were fortunate – they were deaf and blind

The ardent laws of life drive my mortal self,
The roads of existence that I so faithfully tread,
As if hypnotized by love’s very first kiss,
I just move on – sans a question, sans a thought.

I do that because I was directed thus,
Faith blindfolded, I was said is the gate to piety,
That’s our culture our mores I had heard them say,
What lay before me was all I could and would ever see ,
With the jailed imagination of a reclaimed mind.

But few were fortunate – they were deaf and blind.
Deaf to what the 'solemn' preaching preached,
Blind to the obvious and yet the oblivious they had seen,
Some different light they claimed was their guide,
Some lighthouse far away - to be seen by the chosen ships.

And because the rest of the mortals shall forever march,
And because the rest were cast to the destined track,
To stride the defined steps until that one final command.

My playfield for sure has metamorphosed ..

When you look back in time life feels like a happy young toddler with naked feet, dressed in a sleeveless tee and short pajamas, a stick in one hand and a punctured bicycle tyre in the other trying to use one to balance the other on its roller-coaster ride. The carefree, careful, caring, busy, lost, adventurous, wanting and aiming young lad out to discover an undiscovered lane in the oft traversed terrains of human journey – he sums it up all. This character visits my pensive moods and solitude hours very often. He has all the ingredients of a character that is typically human.

He is so much in love with himself. To him the world is his little playfield that begins and ends at the horizons that he can not just see but also touch and reach. The grass beyond is for him some other globe that extraterrestrials inhabit. He has a small little world around him that is completely his own and he is completely in love with it. This little world
he guards from all else, keeps it “mine” and steps out of it with caution, pleasure and ambition only to return back when he gets his due. Just like him we love our homes our jobs our children and all that we have carefully chosen to qualify the tagline “mine”. All that lies beyond belongs to books, newspapers and televisions – to be heard discussed and forgotten. It’s only our ambition that takes us out of it.

But gradually playfields shift, definitions alter. In the ever changing boundaries of “my world” soon we have new pastures. The dream of the verdure yet unseen enchants satiety and we move on. Are the fields really greener? I have not yet known only time will say, but yes my playfield for sure has metamorphosed and my lure has brought me here.