The material ABSTRACT and the immaterial WORLD!

I have a lot to pen down... Quite a lot since I last wrote here. I was talking to my junior Abi a couple of days back on how writing helps me; how well it helps me follows my thoughts to their inner meanings; how greatly it helps me consolidate my character and how satisfied it keeps me to express what is happening within. All that being true, I can only pray I write more, and talk a lot lesser.

Before I go knee deep on my thoughts, it would be safe for me to give a quick flashback of what all happened the last three months. Are you asking why "safe"? Been hearing complaints about amiguity on my context more often than appreciation for good content. 

12 '11 till 02 '12... I probably have to use advanced search functions to find out a similar stretch of 3 months with so much fun and frolic over the past 5 years... And I already see "No results found" on the dumb screen. A lovely trip with SVAP - D (Deepak included :) ) to Masanagudi in late December, a memorable CFL award at work, accolades from colleagues, appreciation from my line, a happy-happy performance rating, my most beloved student clearing his CA Inter exams with Woh! marks, an unexpected trip to KL, catch up with Prakash at Langkawi, a sweet Coimbatore visit with office colleagues, lovely outing to Catherine falls... Doesn't that sound like an over doze? It does, at least for me.

What does a profound title like that have to do with such happy times? I have always learnt and tried remembering from my best reads, that good and bad times carry lessons. Experiences come with a reason, and there never is an exception to the rule. Unfortunately, we take the bad ones too seriously and the good ones, too lightly. In either case, we never look out for the lesson. The most precious moments for insight are often lost in grudge on the person who was the physical cause for the event, or worse, in cursing god for all the ill luck He is showering on us. If I do know this, it is unreasonable not to look back and understand what my lessons were from these experiences...

Masanagudi was selected as "the spot" for SVAP's annual outing based on our earlier experience with Parambikulam sanctuary (Top slip). Too much an expectation, I tell you! We travelled 16 hours from Chennai to spot two deers, one peacock, and one other animal that the driver suspected to be a leopard (he probably wanted to please us!). In material sense, it was not what an agmark CA would call "value for money"... But the conversations that got exchanged, the insights that we shared and the love in our hearts meant so much that it belittled all these flops. We realised how much we missed and needed each other in our lives; how important it was to have loving friends share their frank opinions about each other and spend quality time on the self.

I also so fondly remember how much I longed to travel out of India... All my close friends had travelled - US, UK, Singapore, Dubai, Australia.... I have always felt I should get the experience closer to today than to the unknown future. And when my boss pulled up the KL plan overnight, I was jumping! I, in fact wanted to get back and write a blog on the KL visit, strewn with pics. I don't know how many times I thanked Swami for the opportunity - He should have thought "Ivana laam vaechi...!". But closer to departure, there was a strange emptiness in me, I was no more thrilled nor was I afraid of going away from home.

Indifference - I think, is apt. When I landed in KL, yeah, it was good to be in a foreign land, but things after all weren't so different, especially after seeing a mini Tamil nadu out there! What made my experience of KL memorable was the Mahashivrathri bhajans - I walked 40 mins through the stinking fish markets of KL to spot my Hero's physical abode - The Sathya Sai Centre of Ampang. How I felt during the bhajans and the vedic chants is quite unexplainable, or even if it is explainable, I leave the bliss to the silent memory of my inner confines. Not just that, the love my long time client and her husband showered on me was way too much. Taking someone around the city at 12 in the night? If I were hosting a dinner for a foreign colleague in India, I sure wouldn't do as much!

The Langkawi experience - the beautiful blue beaches, natural scenery, loads of profile pics, strange sports like eagle feeding, freak out with friends in a deserted beach and most of all - the 3 hour chat with Prakash on the beach side, looking up at the skies.. What more can garner that feeling?!

If the point hasn't reached yet, I just need to prune my writing skills more! :)

Life's most important and impacting companion is the abstract - the invisible. The joy of being with people you love, the care in speaking selflessly for a friend, the warmth in hugging your beloved, the bliss of the divine, the vibes within listening to the sound of a beautiful cascade, the solemn through the silent walk into the private tea estates, the sparkle of pride in the eyes of Saip's mom are all abstract. The abstract is very uncanny - he fills the heart momentarily, but disappears in the hides of time. The more we realise and connect to the abstract, the more happy and balanced we will be as human beings.

Who cares if Sri went to KL or Langkawi or Masanagudi? Who cares if my student scored a 45 or 62? Who cares where I saw the deer and leopard? Who cares how much Sri got for his CFL award? Trivial they are, and carry no value over time. The material world - gains too much attention, and loses so much as Indian cricket team would, if they ducked in a test series. The more we connect and care on the material, the more wanting and less loving, we will be as human beings.

The material abstract and the immaterial physical...

Love,
Sri

Autobiography of an Appatucker!

Woh!!

I spend so much time on the title usually, and this time was a zapper!... If you were to ask how much time it took for me to come up with this title, I would probably say "one soppi second"... Cos my collection of books rests just above my monitor. And if you do not find Paramhamsa Yogananda's "Autobiography of a Yogi", hit me on my head! Plagiarism is so beneficial to mankind I tell you...

That's enough crapping Sri.. Now.. Who is this "Appatucker"? Most people would look baffled on this question... Thanks to my friend Arun, for discovering the meaning of this word, as diligently as Vijay discovered Jo's hip in Kushi. My professional institute carries the honour of selecting biological specimens with numerical sense and putting them into a little bit of non sense in what it calls GMCS (never mind the acronym, folks)! If you felt I was trying to become the English TR, apologize right away! My inspiration for anything I do is, more often than not, a biological specimen equivalently cranky as I'm, one Mr. Murali in this case. I may not be too good in "past reading" though I'm sure on this one... This guy inspired the likes of Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw, I bet! English flows so fluently off his tongue, like it just wants to die than to live as he speaks. Not to put down his charisma as an elite member and the 45 minute introduction he gets, let alone whether he is humbled by the reading. I would yield to agree he is a great professional at least in sympathy for the guy who read it - throat dry and eyes wet.

65 of my equivalents underwent this course with me and walked out the gates after 15 days with loads of information, as every student does. How well he put it to use is a question of behaviour, which is, by no means my intent this time. The characters we saw and experienced over these 15 days were so much peculiar and vivid that I thought about them all thro' today. Worth a record, I felt, and here I'm, scribbling this out in the middle of the night.

Among all the teachers who walked into the Brahmayya hall, Mr. Srikanth was the first to impress me... Not for his open appreciation of our brilliance, not for calling us intellectual aristocrats, not for his hilarious comparisons between his wife and Ram's wife, Sita... The guy carried an ingenuity in his word, great respect for his profession and a sincere heart for mutual well being. And then came in Mr. Pratap - with a very effortless smile on his face and a loving intention to interact with us. The ease with which our guys spoke to him, in spite of his age, makes me reconsider my views on generation gap. His extremist views on my faith and strong words against it did hurt me, but I consider it the Red litmus test on my roots - I'm proud I did not take it personally and instead respected his opinions, as they were. My faiths don't need his support and his opinions have nothing to do with my experiences. All this was given up - just by looking at the humility he carried and the twinkle in his eyes!

Not to forget PG! While I may, with all my rational mind, call him an extremely emotional person; opine that he spoke nothing that was relevant to the course; confess that I did not like he insisting on his physical illness all thro' the day, I am bound to respect the man for the sincere efforts he is taking to fight the odd. More than all, I was touched when he made it to our valedictory on a rick.... and humbly retired in a few minutes.

The Motta Boss!! I hated him for his Peter English and the Australian accent. Trivial they are, in front of the reasons why I would look up to him with high regard - a marketing guy, a taxi driver, a security officer, a soft skills trainer, an incorrigible orator and above all, a patient who recovered from coma, by sheer will. Best of all, he never shared his sorrows to the class... nor did he look like one who faced all that. If he could worsen his drinking skills a little more, he is all fit to be a youth icon, at least a million times more than Rahul Gandhi.

If I hadn't seen these characters and a few others like Mr. Kumar and Mr. Vijaygopal, I would have considered the course a complete waste of my efforts and time... Not that I did not learn anything at all, but I felt we deserved a lot more learning for the 15 whole days we traded it for.

And hey, that isn't all! The bunch of friends I got from the classes - For god's sake, no one spoke of Accounting Standards and Amendments to Sch VI to me. My guys made the 15 days sail easier for me, not that they oared it for me... They stood along in the wait for the tides!

The practice sessions, the medleys, the lunch pays, the "Nithya" pressures, random drives to the beach, the silly quarrels, "small girl" dialogues, and a lot more I can't put in here.... Will never forget them all. The course might not have ended in a happy "La la la... la la... la la la" due to the slight rifts that cropped up, but personally, I think nothing else could have built the bonds I now have, and the introspection I now rejoice.


Not to regret, not to miss, I am now done with GMCS. More importantly, to much of your relief, also done with the post!!!

Love,
Sri...