That cold feeling

It's cold here in Bangalore. And I simply love the cold. I don't know, it must be due to the fact that my mom grew up in the hills of Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, and some of it got imprinted onto me. Or it maybe because almost every holiday my siblings and I had in our younger days was at our grandmom's place in Coonoor. There, all our cousins on my mom's side, which was quite a large number considering that she has seven brothers and each has 5.5 kids on an average - except for one uncle who has eleven kids who we have never met (I love big families!!!) - would meet every summer and generally have the time of our lives that most kids of our age are deprived of, poor souls. I have so many pleasant memories of those days. But maybe I'll narrate them later - when I'm feeling a bit more nostalgic. Right now, all I'm feeling is cold.

It's fantastic - the cold. Which is why I simply love hill stations. And which is also why my honeymoon (once the girl comes along) will be at a hill station. You see, one thing about the cold is, you feel like curling up under a warm quilt and not stirring for many hours. Kind of like how bears feel when hibernating. No wonder they forget to come out for months. Who would want to! Let the world worry about itself, I've got my blanket and I'm warm - but only because it's cold outside. Anyway, the point is curling up under a blanket suits me just fine. Right now, my dog curls up along with me. He seems to think exactly like me - we both love winter apparently.

Well Bangalore may not be a hill station, but its weather is close enough. Waking up every morning, I sometimes wince very slightly as I recall nostalgically those golden days now far behind us, on the hills. The only time it gets unpleasant in this city is during summer. But thankfully, I have now entered the workplace, which, in a newspaper, is a kind of pseudo-corporate world. They try to give you the AC and plush sofas, but there are still no coffee machines and the pay still sucks. But at least you get to escape the torturous summer months, of which God in His wisdom only made three for Bangalore.

The second pleasure of winter, after the warm blankets, is the hot bath. I only wish taking off your clothes for these cleansing rituals was not mandatory. But it is, which makes the soaping session especially tough, as you shiver in the cold and your clammy fingers send tingles down your spine. You rush through this section and simply grab at the mug as soon as you can, leaving that one spot unsoaped, but not much the worse for it. The water then flows, it gushes over your body. You keep pouring and can never seem to stop. Until finally, the bucket has just run out, and anyway, you're late for work - again.

Tribute to my dad

This post is dedicated to my dad. He is my biggest fan, who reads every single word I publish, good or otherwise, faithfully, whether in the newspaper or in my blog. He has been constantly encouraging me and making me believe that I have some ability in me, however much that may actually be. If I still have any confidence in me, it is only because of him and my mom. I know it may sound sentimental and all, but it is true. I had been thinking I would delay this post till a later date, but today I figured, you should never delay these things. Stuff happens so suddenly these days, and I couldn't bear to regret it then. God forbid though that anything should happen, because I believe, like my pastor says, that my family will all live ripe full lives if you have the faith for it.

Anyway, dad, if you're reading this, as I know you will, this is just to tell you I love you very much. Thanks for making me believe in myself and for teaching me to look at myself the way God does. Thankyou for your practical outlook on life that you so wisely passed on to us. We all may not realise it, but all you have struggled to teach us is ingrained deep in our systems and makes us act the way we do, which would have been much worse otherwise (to put it like how the good optimists like to do). Above all, thankyou for loving me and making me feel it. Your love has made me understand a fraction of what our Heavenly Father above feels for me! And at the end, that's all that matters.

That crazy spark

Sometimes I get this urge to do crazy things. It's not that I'm a crazy guy myself, or at least I don't think so. But there are times when you just get in this whacky mood to do something out of the ordinary. These things are not pre-meditated. Like any work of creativity (however much you agree with this parallel), it all depends on a spark! Before you know it, it has become a forest fire. Or at least a bush fire, which lights up the surroundings for a brief space. Also, like any fire, it has different effects on different people. To one it seems bizarre, to another, it's dangerous, to a third - like those who love to watch a 'good' fight on the streets - it's pure fun, and so on.

Well, the other day I was awoken from a deep slumber at 8.30 am by my folks who advised me to start my day sometime soon. I was too sleepy to resist, so I came downstairs and balanced myself against the wall, my eyes half-closed. When I saw there was no hope of getting back to bed, I decided to start brushing my teeth. This usually takes half-an-hour on a normal peaceful day. Different people have different ways of starting the day. Many like to meditate quietly. This is my way of meditating. Most people who see me think I'm asleep and the toothbrush has taken a life of its own and, knowing its master well enough, is moving in rhythm with his few thoughts. Little do they know, the master is actually meditating. His mind is running through the previous day, looking into the day ahead, and generally just flitting lazily, like its master's disposition, from one subject to another, in no apparent logical order.

I was halfway through my ritual, when my sister's sweet voice requested me to drop her off at school. Now, no one likes to break off one's meditative spells just like that. And I certainly wasn't prepared for it. I'm a patient man, but there are things like meditation and leaving off midway a ritual like I had that cannot be compromised, especially for a man of my 'principles'. It was at such a moment - when caught between these 'principles' and patience that the spark hit. It was simple yet ingenious - I would drop her off at school, yet without leaving my ritual halfway. I would take it with me!

My poor sweet sister was not prepared for a sight such as what met her eyes. What she saw was the main character of a scene she had just witnessed, but in another scene. I was on my bike, strapped up in my jacket because of the cold, with my toothbrush in my mouth like a pipe. She stared. But she was too sweet and too late to raise any protests. So she hopped on my bike.

Until we reached school, everything was fine. Probably at the speed at which I was travelling, on my super bike - the TVS 50 [super] (which is the family bike it seems, because, like us, it is humble and slow in the ways of the world) , people couldn't make out it was a toothbrush. It was on my way back, without my sister (luckily for her), that I had to stop at a junction. For some reason, the cop, on seeing me, started muttering to himself. I figured it might be the toothbrush. Or it might be the fact that I wasn't wearing a helmet, as the new rule on the roads was. But maybe he didn't do anything to pull me up since the following thoughts passed quickly (and admirably so) through his official head: probably it was that carrying a toothbrush in one's mouth while on a bike wasn't an offence (at least not a punishable one, like riding with the mobile phone in hand), and further, such an act also made it difficult to wear a helmet. While he was puzzling all this out, he continued to stare severely in my direction. I stared back indulgently, and, maintaining eye contact throughout (psychologists will always say this is advisable, though a traffic cop might not), I winked at him as I passed.

An imperfect world

I know my posts have been becoming more depressing of late, but I cannot help it. I like to think of myself as a happy person, and I have no real doubt that I am. It would be ideal if I was able to put down only happy instances in my life. But searching through the database of my mind, especially the recent past, I try to find some happy memories but find hardly anything new to talk about. My 'happy' life seemingly goes on with hardly anything happier happening. Now normally, this should not upset anyone, but we writers, or rather, since I consider that to be too pretentious a term, we who make our living through writing start getting restless at such times and turn to our chosen form of expression to let it all out. That is the reason why so many great philosophers were a depressed lot.
Now I may be neither a great philosopher or writer but I am great at being myself and that can be an awesome responsibility! So I ramble, which is what I'm good at, and I finally get to the point, which is about my new job.
It appears that some people in this world just won't like you for inexplicable reasons that can be frustrating if you try to figure them out. You try your best to please everyone, but at the end you realise the truth - the project was doomed from the start. Even the most perfect man in history, the human form of God Himself - Jesus Christ - could not please all people. Not that He couldn't do it if He wanted to but then that is a paradox in itself as He would not have wanted to in the first place. Which is why He is perfect and He is God. If He had tried to please all folk in this world, He would not have landed up at the cross and anyway He just would not have been God. But He was, which is why everything happened as it did. But the difference is, He was able to understand why certain folk didn't like him.
But me, I'm hardly perfect nor do I have anything divine about me except that I'm made in the image of God! So when I find people just don't respond to my gestures of pleasantness, I find it hard to understand. It makes me depressed. I have both one senior and two bosses to whom whatever I do doesn't seem to penetrate their fortress of defences. I have always believed in the principle that you can break down these walls with constant kindness or just general pleasantness but now this belief has been seriously threatened. I find my base shaky. I realise now the truth - as long as you're living in an imperfect human world, such expectations are just too ideal and just as unrealistic.
So I came back yesterday, after another day of trying too hard to please and only getting bitten in the backside, and took my dog out into the garden. While she ran about looking for what she could digest that should not be digested, I looked up at the sky, since that is where I feel God most! I mean, I could just as well have looked at the wall behind me or at the plants both with thorns and without all around me, but though I might have been looking at God, I wouldn't have felt Him so strongly. Perhaps that is because I was trying to look away from the human world around me into the one place that was free of them. Of course there are a few astronauts floating around in their bubbles in the sky, but they are mostly harmless and their constant fear of lightning bolts and their supreme love of gravity keeps the fear of God in them nice and strong. Even as I was looking into the sky, the astronauts of the space shuttle Discovery were soaring into that very space themselves. But I didn't feel them. Perhaps they felt God very strongly themselves. I hope they did. They might just become better people.
Anyway, the sky was starless and dark, and clouds were moving thickly overhead. They were moving slowly but with a certain sureness about them that filled me with awe. I then spoke to God. He knew I hadn't been the best of His children of late, but He's just too loving that He listened anyway. I asked Him, "Lord, why do you allow people to bully people like me? Why don't you remove me from this world? I think I've just about had my fill of human beings." Now this was nothing the Lord hadn't heard before. Many before me, and I myself, have asked Him the same thing many times before. And if God wasn't God He wouldn't have listened. But He did. I don't know if the clouds moved any faster than they were, but I doubt it! God is too dignified, too non-human and basically He keeps His equanimity about Him at all times. So He gave me a silent answer. "Just as these clouds keep moving, you've got to do so too. There's no point standing out here and brooding. It's getting cold and you've got to get on with your life, so do get back into the house, please. I love you. Now go." Well, it was something to that effect anyway. I just felt it. So bringing my eyes back to the earth, and picking up the closest thing to perfect in this world - my dog - I marched back into the house.