What if the world had ended today

Ever since the month of December had begun, some where or the other I had seen either posts or pictures about the world ending on 21/12/12. Well, writing a post on the D-day seemed exciting for it would give me some fodder to meander my thoughts and reflect on some vital questions about me and my life.

Whenever I see any post about the world ending, I would always stop to ask myself whether I was prepared to leave. I have also thought, 'What if the world was just ending as I was thinking about the world ending?' How would the end be, I wonder. Will the entire world just become ashes or will it be continent by continent. Somehow, I always think that the process of destruction will begin elsewhere but not in India. Like everyone, I imagine that the process can be delayed.

The thought of the world ending is not something new for a person who is born and brought up in a Christian household where Sunday-school becomes mandatory and Sunday-school teachers always harping on the fact that where would you want to go after you died. I was very scared when the teachers broached that topic, which would be invariably always. At the tender age of say, seven or eight, I had assumed that I was a bigger sinner than anyone else and that only hell was my final destination after I die. I would always be negotiating on the possibilities and pray, 'Please don't let me go to hell!'

Hell was nowhere when I started College. I was quite fascinated by the saying which adorns many a faded Tee shirt and quotable quotes for students - "Good girls go to heaven; bad girls go everywhere." I loved travelling and hence with a fierce mind started associating hell with excitement and fun. After all, one thinks that one is footloose and fancy free when in College. Whatever, I didn't want a destination in heaven.

Well, coming back to the world ending today, I would say that I would be glad to leave for I seem content and happy in my present state of mind. There are many things that I would have liked to do but they don't seem very important if the world is to end today.

What are your thoughts on this? I have already got the gut feeling that the world wouldn't end anytime soon but some of my friends ask me to wait till the clock strikes 12 tonight for that is the time the prediction time-frame ends. Why wait when I have better plans. See you on the other side of the date. Until then, be happy and sane.

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Why I stopped reading Ayn Rand

Some books change your life . . .
On hindsight you discover that the book has changed you for worse. But while reading the book, one doesn't realise that the change has already begun within unbeknown to you.

After lofty recommendations from friends, teachers and local librarian, I set my hands on my first Ayn Rand book - The Fountainhead. Like everyone who raves and rants about the book, I had my share as well. Howard Roark was the epitome of everything ambitious, passionate and superior grit. I was floating in the cloud of pride that unites Ayn Rand readers, more so Howard Roark admirers. Well, I starved for more of Rand's books - I started reading Atlas Shrugged. Same sentiments followed. I was glued and had the potential of becoming a Rand fanatic - her arguments became mine. She possessed my thinking and gradually the 'I' in me became rather pronounced.

I continued reading Rand and slowly I started reading her philosophy of life. Two years passed by. I was haughty. In 2009, I started reading We the Living. As the book progressed, I was getting restive. Selfishness was romanticised and individualism was the only thing that mattered to Rand. Parallely, I also started reading the biography of Ayn Rand. The more pages I completed in We the Living, the more I started becoming disillusioned by the characters' selfish demeanour especially the character of Kira Argounova.

Kira's high form of individualism was appalling. I realise that the self is important but not to the extent of manipulating the lives of others. Tenderness and compassion was something that the characters never showed and if they did display those emotions, it was as a tool to achieve something. I found that sinister and cruel. Perhaps the conditions in my life at that point of time swerved my judgment of Ayn Rand. But that was it. I knew that if I read her further, I would grow to be a cold and heartless woman whose only ambition in life was being superior in reason and self. I stopped reading Rand. And to this day, haven't ventured anywhere near her books.

If Rand read this post, she would have called me a chicken and a pretender but my decision wouldn't have changed.

Now, if you think that this is too much for a book - I would say, 'Don't undermine the power of a book,' for you don't know how it will alter your perceptions and perspectives.

And to all those Ayn Rand lovers and followers, no offense. You are welcome to challenge me in the comments' section. Hope to meet you there.

Have you stopped reading any author simply for the reason that the toxicity was smothering you? I will be glad to hear your stories.

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What Chennai Means To Me

This post is part of the blog tag titled, The CBC Tablog where CBC stands for Chennai Bloggers Club. About 37 bloggers from Chennai are participating in this blog tag where everyone will write about their favourite city Chennai and what it means to them. So here's my post for the CBC tablog titled, What Chennai Means To Me.

I came to Madras in 1989. I was about 9 years and seven months old. I didn't want to leave the city where my formative years were spent - Bombay. I still vividly remember that I cried and cried and pleaded with my dad that we should not go to Madras or rather we should not leave Bombay.

                                                                           

Madras or Chennai slowly became my home even though I didn't particularly like the place. We both grew with each other. I fell in and out of love many times in this city. Madras gradually grew from a place with only roads to a city of long fly-overs. Many of my firsts are associated with this place which I fondly cherish. I never let any opportunity to compare the city with Bombay, go past me. I always defended Bombay whenever there was a discussion between cities. Inspite of living in Madras/Chennai, I dreamt of Bombay and the life there. I never reconciled that I was a resident of Chennai.

                                                                           

There came a time when I had an opportunity to leave Chennai and shift to another place for work. I was glad to move out of the city. Even then, it didn't matter that my family, friends and other interests were in Chennai. I was happy for two whole years in the other place, coming to Chennai only during vacation breaks. Chennai was still a surrogate city. It was 2006, eighteen years in Chennai but still the city did not fascinate me at all.

                                                                      

Then I got married. I left Chennai, coming only for a few days or so. Now my mother's house was in Chennai. After getting married, you don't say, 'My house is in Chennai' rather it is, 'My mother's house!' Slowly the idea of my mother's house and Chennai became synonymous. Whenever I came to Chennai, it was always early morning when I arrived, I started seeing the city differently. I don't know whether it was the early morning's aura or my nostalgia soaked visits. The coolness of the air when I travelled from Tambaram to my place was magical. I yearned for that magic always. It was bliss. So far, I had always felt restless about home. But whenever I visited Chennai after my departure from there, it seemed that I had come home. This feeling was absent in 2006 when I was working outside Chennai. I started longing for the small pleasures of Chennai like the crowd in T. Nagar, the colour or Express Avenue, the smell of the bazaars, the posters on the walls, the Gemini fly-over and so on. Whenever we went shopping, I looked at the city with an intention of taking in much so that I could preserve for later use when I'm away from it. I started collecting memories of Chennai and pickled old and new memories together with the preservative of smells, sights and sounds.

                                                                       

Today, I am far away from Chennai and family. I realise that I had lost many years by being in a trance about the then Bombay and now Mumbai. The Bombay that I know is but a memory that is very very old and maybe I won't recognise the new Mumbai but Chennai isn't so. I don't know 50% of the places in Chennai but I know what I want to know - my home and places that matter to me.

It's very rare that I get to write about places in back-to-back posts and that too about Chennai of all.

This post will be succeeded by Anne John who blogs at Abstract Admissions, who calls herself an engineer in her past life and is an active member of Women's Web. Visit her blog to know more about her writings and passions.

The Chennai Bloggers Club Blog Tag has come full circle with Bhavana Nissima's post on Chennai today (01 Feb, 2013).

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Travelling vs Living

When I say that I live in Goa, everyone gasps and sighs and thinks that it would be absolutely wonderful to live in a place where everyone goes for vacationing. Well, why not? After all the place is beautiful filled with beaches and lovely people. For a long time I had imagined how it would be to live in a place where everyone vacations and now the imagination has become a reality. Wow is the most cliched expression to Goa!

But seeing a place as tourist/traveller is a completely different perspective. A tourist does not stand in long queues, runs about for gas connections and feels that the heat is absolutely draining. Living in a place demands a removal from seeing the same place as a tourist destination. The vegetable markets which sells fresh vegetables are not seen by tourists unlike the one who dwells here. Beaches which are synonymous with Goa are not even seen where I live! But I know that there are beaches somewhere and I will get to see it soon. That promise of being surrounded by sea on all sides makes one feel glorious. But as a dweller, the taxi driver tells you that the sea around Goa makes it a humid place. He will not tell this to tourists. Sometimes I wonder whether the actual place or the imagination of a place makes a person go gaga. I guess it's a bit too early to comment. Every place, no matter a tourist destination or just another places has pluses and minuses which start raising its head slowly but I realise that I asked for it and so I will focus on the best this place has to offer.

I have always had a special relationship with places. I have either loved them or hated them. But as I grow older than what I was yesterday, I realise that perceptions change. One can hate a place and continue living there for certain things just cannot be changed. As time goes, the place and the individual grow together and both are part of one another even without realising the same. We form our own comfort zones - the domestic help, the vegetable seller, the milk-man, the newspaper vendor, the local market, the community around and others. I had a comfort zone in the place where I lived before and I terribly miss my domestic help - she knew my rhythms and I hers. We were just acquainted for about eight months and I had to depart. She called me yesterday and told me that I should be careful in a new place - people are not the same everywhere. She also asked me whether I had found a new help. I miss her.

As I begin my stay here, I am looking for the coordinates that will connect my comfort zones. Until the comfort zones are in place, I will be a restive dweller.

So, dear reader, how does relocation and new places work for you?

Love from Goa :)

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For the big man with a very tender heart

For a very long time, my blogger friend Mahesh Iyer who blogs at Memories has been pestering asking me to do a post on my favourite quotes. Finally I am at it. This post is for him - The big man with a very tender heart. This post is also a thank-you post for the wonderful readers of this blog. I cherish each and every one of you :)

"The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson -

 

“Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens?” 

- Wislawa Szymborska -

 

"Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity."

- Henry Van Dyke -

 

"Behind the facade of image and distraction, each person is an artist in this primal and inescapable sense. Each one of us is doomed and privileged to be an inner artist who carries and shapes a unique world."

- John O' Donohue -

 

"Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change. Kindness that catches us by surprise brings out the best in our natures."

- Bob Kerrey -

 

"Try to make at least one person happy every day. If you cannot do a kind deed, speak a kind word. If you cannot speak a kind word, think a kind thought."

- Lawrence G. Lovasik -

"The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives."

- Anthony Robbins -

"Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

- Rainer Maria Rilke -

"Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don't want it. What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone."

- Miller Williams -

"I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort, where we overlap."

- Ani DiFranco -

"When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too."

- Paulo Cohelo -

"Our life is composed greatly from dreams from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together."

- Anais Nin -

"Love leads us into mystery where no one can say what comes next, or how, or why."

- Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg -

"Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work."

- William Arthur Ward -

"The only way love can last a lifetime is if it's unconditional. The truth is this: love is not determined by the one being loved but rather by the one choosing to love."

- Stephen Kendrick -

"To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted."

- George Kneller -

Hope you liked these cherry-picked quotes, of which many have been posted to my Facebook wall. Please feel free to copy the quote that you liked and related to. I would be happy if you could add your own favourite quote in the comments' section. Mahesh, does this make you happy?

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It takes thirty plus three and a few months

Some posts don't allow you to rest. They nag, demand attention, try to hijack the stray vacant minutes until you finally allow yourself to write what it dictates to you. The present post is like that.

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Mothers are strange creatures. They seem to have super-human abilities, solutions to the mundane worries that threaten to sabotage the peace of the day, quick-fixes to flush out the extra salt from the food and a zillion other practical stuff. Inspite of doing all this, the smile on the face remains and the facial appointment is never ever skipped. Phew! I never realised all this until I got married. Marriage always turns everything upside-down, opined my friends in the days when I wasn't married. And, like every single woman who takes pride in brushing off nuggets of wisdom that comes with experience, I never was quite interested in tales of being married. But I did listen, out of respect and warmth that comes with friendship.

But the tales, which turned out to be hard core facts hit me hard once I got married. And, when I say hard core facts, I don't mean the 'space' problems that every modern couple like to rave about but the teeny weeny things that often go unnoticed but still have the ability to mar the smooth flowing of the day's rhythms. Like many individuals who read theory and start every argument with abundant dosages of feminist philosophies with an extra dash of attitude, I had my share of mother-bashing and other things which I will refrain from sharing. Today, I realised that my mother is quite practical and sensible when it comes to certain things. And, marriage being something that you learn on the job, nothing can prepare you for it except the marriage itself. No matter how much one reads, listens to experiential stories and watches videos by marriage experts, nothing will tell you about the last minute hassles, niggling doubts about the right way to go about something and other stuff.

I realised that no matter what, I can call my mother and she will have something to say that will make me think, "That's it?" Many times, we look for grand ideas and solutions forgetting that sometimes thinking simple does all the tricks. I never imagined that my mother had done so many things - juggling thoughts, schedules, house and work and other small stuff. I also realise that planning though is hyped over and over can never be executed most of times and one needs to have that small doubt that things can go kaput even with detailed planning. You plan the breakfast, lunch and sundry details for the next day and late at night friends drop in. The plan takes a turn but one has to do quick thinking. Sticking to plans then is absolutely absurd. My mother was doing all these things with elan and finesse. Who taught her? Her mother? I don't think so. She was married off very early. She learnt it on the job - by trial and error.

Now, today, after thirty years plus three and a few months, I come to wonder at the life my mother and most of the mothers live and continue living. The sense of balance, taking care of the family and the self, fixing last minute change of plans and accommodating changes in schedules of our mothers is just amazing. I regret those years when I did not get to know her and think along with her. Now when I run my own home and have my own set of burnt toast mornings, I marvel at the wonder of my mom.

This post is for her.

She might not get to know of this post, maybe she will, but this post is from the innermost depths of my married being :)