Nighttime

Die
Mosquito,
Die.

Solituding

I asked Nim to give me a word for solitude which has a positive ring to it. Thesaurus. That's all I got from her. Thanks babe. Much help. After consulting one, I came up with words like seclusion, isolation, loneliness. A part of my brain was laughing it's wrinkles off. So much for positive rings.
I've been coming in super early to work these days to catch up on the hours of office time (not sleep) that I've missed over the past one year. When I walk into the darkened, empty building,  I imagine myself dancing and singing at the top of my voice just because I can. But then I just giggle and enter my cubicle. And then because I have trouble sitting still in the deathly silence and the weather is nice outside, I grab a book and my iPod and step outside. I usually head out towards the smoking zone that looks out onto an open field and sit there, looking out at nothing. Sometimes Mythalli the dog (technically, a bitch, but I don't want you to think I am referring to a coworker) comes and joins me in my positive ringing solitude, coaxing me to scratch her dirty head. I don't really know what Mythalli's name is, or even if she has one, but I like the one I have given her. I think it is a nice one for anything female. Every once in a while, a smoker will walk in and light up behind me. Once Mythalli has had her share of head scratching, she will turn her back to me and guard my back against these smokers who she obviously feels are a threat to my well being. She reminds me of Chica, my cousins' dog. Chica wouldn't let my cousins mess with me, she always jumped up and growled at Raghu if he tried to drag me off the armchair or something. She's a babe. I don't know where Mythalli is off to today, I saw her paw marks on the sidewalk on my way over. They disappeared into the dirt path just before the smoking zone, I assume she is lazing around somewhere else today.
The smoking zone is a nice peaceful place to sit in. This early, not many people are around, the few that show up are, like me, sitting around staring at the nothing. There is a kind of familiarity between us, yet, nobody speaks a word. Strangers in the day. You love each other for the ten minutes you spend sharing the solitude, and then you quickly forget. No broken hearts, just peace.
This is probably what Pico Iyer meant in his TEDTalk on The Art of Stillness. The sitting in one place without an agenda and letting the world pass you by. Without worrying about finishing the assignment or about the day that lies ahead. It is just the process of being, of floating free in time, absorbing the sun. This may be a silly post, but it's free floating, structureless, aimless. It exists just because it can, and that makes it beautiful to me.
Time to switch off and sit back again.

Adios,
Naina

Existence

“Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter.”

The Stranger, Albert Camus

Living is a funny feeling. There are moments of pure joy, followed by an endless abyss of concentrated pain. It is an eternal wait for a few moments of elation enveloped between hideous moments of nothingness. You are born, you are raised, you are educated, you are spoiled, you are then sent out into the world to fend for yourselves, to find your life, to find out where your story goes. What you don't realise is that along the way, you lose bits of yourself, you shed your innocence, you hide your feelings, you pretend that your life has some importance to the universe. Once you have a steady job, a house, a car, a dog, a family...what is left? What do you wake up to every morning? To a job you have been working at every day for ten years? To your children whose shiny faces melt your heart till they start bawling and howling for attention? Or to your husband who means the world to you and who has spent his entire adult life growing into a spouse that you always dreamt of? Where is the joy in this melancholy? Where is the excitement? We, as a human race has advanced so much that our life expectancy is about 70-90 years, yet, what is the point of living such a long life if all you do with it is to exist? Some of you might argue with statements such as,  "Hey, what if Mother Teresa or  Van Gogh or A.R. Rehman or any of the other Toms, Dicks and Harrys had thought like that? Would the world be what it is today?" To you, I say, of course not. But would it have mattered? What would have mattered, probably, that the likes of Hitler or Idi Amins had thought like that. The world would have been a better place. The absence of bad will always outweigh the presence of the good. The good is only needed as long as the bad exists. Remove the negative, and you won't need the positives, just the neutrals. Most of us spend our entire lives living in the Neutral zone. Existing for the sake of it, trying to find joy, and failing to make it stick. It's just a series of highs and lows, with no end in sight. 

With the Delhi election results out tomorrow, it anyway feels like the end is near. All hope is lost. It is what it is, nothing moves forward, nothing can go backwards. It is a rut, we are all stuck awaiting some miracle to make our lives more exciting, more loved and more blessed. I doubt there is anything more than this. We've seen it all, we have been tricked into believing any of this matters.

It is the end of life, as we know it.

Milestone!!

Woohoo!!

I've got 3000 hits today! (I am almost certain 2000 of those are my own, about 50 each for Lala and Nim, and the rest I shared on my own with people that I laaaarve)
:D

Just need to put this down, I am obsessing over Hozier's Take Me to Church, and during the less melancholy moments, over Meghan Whatsername's All About the Bass (no treble).

I suggest you switch off everything around you, get a pair of Bose speakers, turn off the lights and play Take me To Church. Let it wash over you, and let go. Weep for what you have and what you don't. Weep for all that you're going to lose during the course of your life. This moment is it. For the uninitiated, the song has nothing to do with church. It is more to do with "sinning".  Beautiful lyrics. Beautiful music. My lover's got a great sense of humour. And an amazing voice.

Time to go help Lala win an online quiz.
Happy listening,
Come back for more!

Naina 

An Essay on God

Recently, I was asked to write an essay on  "God, a Myth or Reality?". I quite liked what I wrote and thought I would try and reproduce it here. I would like to put in a few words before I do that, though.
The post is not aimed to hurt any other person's views/opinions/religious sentiments. What has been expressed here is not an attempt to sound politically correct either. This is what it is. I suggest you keep an open mind when you read the following. It may just make you think.

****

I have been unable to make up my mind whether I believe in God or not. It sounds a little bizarre to me that there is a super being sitting around somewhere, monitoring the situation across the Universe and deciding how everything works. At the same time, when you think about how it all began with a few atoms clumping together to form a molecule which further clumped together to form mass and wonder at the complexity of the entire system, you cannot help but wonder at how it could have been a random and spontaneous occurrence.

I think God is more of a concept. Consider the Universe to be an isolated science experiment governed by a set of rules or laws. Changing a few dynamics within the system will lead to reactions. However, since we have not been able to unravel all the laws and mysteries of our world, we begin to believe in a super power which explains the unexplained and allows us to accept the unknown. Going by this logic, I begin to wonder, who made these laws?

I end this here, on this ambiguous note, because I don't think there is much more I can add to explain my non-stand on this topic. Maybe it's better to have a little faith, maybe not. Only you can know what works best for you.

****

A discussion followed the essay, where I was asked if I pray. I responded in the negative, to which I was asked, what DO you have faith in? What do you do when you need help or need someone to reach out to? I had no answer to that question. When I think about it now, I suddenly realise, why do we need faith? Why is it required? I realise I probably don't have faith because I have hopes. When you really come to think of it, when you Hope something happens, isn't it almost the same as praying it does? How is hoping different from praying? You hope within yourself, whereas you direct your prayers to a God. Maybe that's all the difference there is. Who is to say?

I have no more to add.

I bid y'all a goodnight.

Naina

Desperation

Dear February,
Come hither.
Look at me,
I'm beginning to wither.

Put me out,
Of my agony
Show me now,
How it will be.

I reach out,
For the fire
Burn my hands,
But still don't tire.

Everyday I stay,
I decide,
To grow a pair,
And toughen my hide.

Like a weakling,
I trudge along.
Looking for salvation,
In the depths of a bong.

My dear February,
Please come now.
Hasten the time,
And take a final bow.

Winter is Coming

I have to master the art of not feeling cold. I am sitting here watching girls walking around without socks in bare-all sandals, some even without their pants (going to the beach ladies?) and I shiver! Here I am wearing two pairs of socks on my feet, one pair on my hands, and I shall not talk about the one covering my head. And the men! One flimsy leather jacket, folded at the elbows....brrr!! Hey! Aren't you the same dude who was wearing a woolen skull cap last summer!? I think there is something off about your body temperature regulator, son. Better go see a doctor. Come new year's eve, the girls go all out in short dresses you wouldn't catch my grandmother wearing, the boys wear extra coats so they can *aherm* lend them to the ladies when they feel cold. (No judging, no judging)
The Taneja clan is out in this freeing cold to support the youngest Taneja in his singing venture. He looks gorgeous out there! (You can watch him singing here).
Everywhere I look, I am surrounded by people dressed in greys and blacks, with a few daring ones sitting around on the freezing floor in red. Winters is such a dreary season, I haven't seen the sun in two weeks now! If I was a dirty boy, I think I would have probably gone without a bath all season.
I think its time to put my blue and swollen fingers back inside my pockets. We don't want them chopped off now, do we?

Winterrrrrrs

Winter is here.
Naina