I'm seated here...
On a white cozy chair next to an old oak table with silver beading beside a plush Samsung LCD TV, after a refreshingly long bath in 434 of The Zuri, Whitefield, B'lore. This, probably, has been my most comfortable stay in all these years of travel.. Thanks to my employer, he pampers me like a kid! In spite of all this luxury, I feel extremely lonely sitting in this room, watching barely at the brown wall in front of me, and occasionally munching my almond snack. Travel is never boring for me.. but today, it is.
It is... Probably because I don't have my Akil to patiently wait for me for hours at the Forum mall, just to say a bright "Hi" without even letting me feel guilty for the delay; ask me courteously where we shall go and pleasingly accompany me to the same restaurant over and over again, just cos I love the Bindhi masala there! Or is it because I was all hyped up last time I was at this place, for my successful results gracefully donated to me and incidentally have no such stuff this time around? Or is it cos I badly miss the manager who would happily take me from Blore to Parthi overnight in spite of all his physical strain? Or...
Well, whatever!! This solitude and emptiness makes me realize that I need to speak today.. Or rather "Speak out"... On a couple of things that have made me think in the recent past and those that impacted my ways. I don't plan to write a flowing note here... I plan to pen down - "as is" caught up within me.
My energy hub runs NDTV - 24by7, I literally meant 24by7. That's one reason why I prefer picking my coffee and carrying it to my desk for a relaxed sip. I somehow do not understand why 24by7 news channels (that too, a dozen of them!) are needed in India. Well they do have something to keep showing.. Be it the Page 3 shots from yesterday's party at Vijay Mallya's beach house; or the Ground Zero coverage of fan response for Endhiran; or the quasi entertainment avatar of showing exceprts from reality shows - Headline at the heated 9 in the morning goes "Top thief exits BIG BOSS 3 on Day 1" - Waah! What indispensable news for people to know!! But I should not be so unfair to them either.. They have given me humour to laugh over for more than weeks.. "DELHI MAY CRAWL TODAY" - Well if you did not understand that, it is supposed to mean traffic snarls are up in Delhi due to CWG. The next one is the best - "BUTT BACKS OFF" - no comments! Indian media, in my opinion, is more bothered about publicizing itself than providing what is needful to the people. There are times my mom would coerce me to watch news every day. These days, she shys away seeing what is disguised as news. What counts most for them is the fasionable statements like "Exclusively on Times Now", "Pictures of the accident - first shown on world television".. Well, I wouldn't blame them for all this - they are probably forced to or, they probably like being forced to do so. One recent consolation was the way the media handled the Babri masjid case - "Putting India first" - for once showing solidarity in thought and ethical responsibility. I would want to write more on this.. but something else is overpowering my intention...
"Conversations with God" - This book caught my eye when I was perusing thro' the multitude of books in Landmark. The topic interested me.. And I read the preface.. It was about a man who incidentally happened to get responses from God for questions on his personal life. It soon became a habit and he started penning down all that God told him and published it as a book. Mind it.. It is not fiction.. It is a real life piece of work. The preface won in a tug of war between the price and content and I ended up buying the book. It was a philosophy in slightly complex words.. I read the pages at least twice before I turned each of them. The book re emphasized my belief that we are small pieces of the vaster divine. It told me that God is an experience and not a phenomenon. It captivated me when it said that all happens as a result of our present and past thoughts and deeds. I linked each word of it to my present faith - karma, omniscience, omnipresence, world conscience, the energy within & above.. And I felt great!! But then, it slowly moved into higher contents like the reason for world sorrow, hunger, illness - all in first tense as God's very own words. It was a full lot of 15 pages.. And I managed to read it once. I re read it once again and then the third time. And beyond that, I shut the book and left it in my shelf - untouched for over 20 days now.
I ask myself why I did it.. Somehow, it made me uncomfortable to try to know beyond what I know. I did not want the philosophy to sink in me by reading a 100 times.. it has to flow by experience. I realize that I did the right thing. In my opinion, philosophies are not created by mere thought. Instead, deeply motivated habits/deeds, unknowingly, become philosophy in due course of time. Siddhartha did not walk into the forest to create a philosophy.. He went to practise habits/deeds that would make him happy. And then one day, someone called it "Buddhism"! This is the reason why I enjoyed reading the book until I connected to what it said - cos I believed in it and lived in that faith. When the book reached heights I have never been to, it looked like nothing more than a thermophysics book to me! I knew nothing it said... I haven't realised any word it said. I probably would read it again some day.. some time when I am beyond those peaks too.. and feel really great again.
Until then, Ignorance is bliss!! And until then, I would remember this evening I planned to blog after long and scribe down my silly yet sincere thoughts.
Here I am seated, thinking beyond time, enjoying the dim light of my table lamp and the silent hum of my laptop's fan.. about the heart filling way in which I spent the last four hours!
Love,
Sri
