Fear of Change is worse than Change itself

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It's not that you were not expecting a Change. You have been, for years. Even so, it must be admitted that you were not exactly "prepared". Even when you know what's coming, (and you hope it isn't) you deny the possibility of it ever happening, and so you're never quite sufficiently ready.

You knew it was bound to happen. Eventually. Eventually was so far away that, when it did happen, you were almost taken by surprise. 

All these years you had scraped by, because you had fallen between the cracks and gone unnoticed. 

Suddenly the Change you feared looms before you like a huge, dark, undecipherable shadow. All you want to do is turn tail and vanish. But running away is not an option. 

The only way is forward.

A long dark tunnel appears. You don't know how long it is going to take for you to emerge on the other side. Perhaps days. Perhaps years. Perhaps this lifetime. 

You lived your life right, according to principles. According to morals. You held on to integrity. Honesty. You followed all the rules. If there is such a thing as Destiny, then maybe the tunnel will not be that long. Because you lived right. You can only hope. 

You see clearly before you - how your own choices in the past have brought you here. If anyone is to blame, it is yourself. With the veil before your eyes that prevent you from seeing tomorrow, you did the best you could do. If one could see tomorrow, one's choices may be different. But then, the tomorrow you foresaw would no longer exist.

In spite of your correct decisions, you were taken by surprise by the twists and turns of life. 

There is nothing to do. Pause; and reflect. Are you making the best decision based on everything you know, at this moment? Then, open your eyes wide and step into the darkness. Your eyes will adjust. There will be a light at the end. (There has to be. If not, there is nothing you can do, anyway.) You can take that crucial step only by telling yourself that you did the best you could. Courage comes from that firm belief.

From there on, there is only one thing left to do. 

You keep going.

One step at a time.

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Routines

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​There's no escape
From the frightening
Circle of life
A chaos of terrifying routines
One falling over the other
In senseless abandon...

We're all prisoners
Of our own conscience.
Addicted to sacrifice,
Brought up to believe
In selflessness.
To break away is to be Free.

Hanging ourselves
From the rigid
Ceiling of expectations
With the rope called love;
The noose called duty
Shrinking daily...

Freedom comes with
Tiny doses of
Courage and recklessness
You may be born with
Or you learn and develop
With awareness

One almost begins to
Long for a morrow
That brings Disaster!!
If it would make a dent in life
A hole in the ground
For weeds to spring forth...

I'm a slave to Routines...

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Goodbyes

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How difficult Goodbyes used to be... for those who remember a time before the gadgets of today. You meet someone, make friends, and then it is time to part. As the last day approaches, you realise that there is nothing you can do to push it a little farther. You have to go your separate ways. You exchange postal addresses and landline numbers, and promise to keep in touch. And it happens too, for a short while. Then one day it stops.

Today at least we have the luxury of knowing they are always at the other end of our phone. If we miss them, all we have to do is ping. Text them, call them, video call them. Or read up their updates on Facebook.

But how does one bid farewell to one's Dreams? There does come a point when, after much deliberation and struggle, we realise that it is time to give up. Stop, let go, and move on. For reasons that cannot be generalised. Or explained. Or even understood. Not a screeching halt, perhaps; a sputter, a jerk, a roll and... it comes to rest. The decision may not be made lightly or quickly; it could happen over the course of months or years. If we are unlucky, it would just snap out of the blue, leaving us unprepared and flailing.

There is a Goodbye looming in my horizon; and there is nothing I can do to prevent it. I have been fighting tooth and nail to keep it away. But there is only so much one can do - what is bound to happen will happen. You can only try to find satisfaction in that you tried your best. It doesn't work all the time.

How does one say Goodbye to a Dream, and to the people that come with it? Only Time can tell. Only Time can heal.

Or so they say.

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Tomorrow

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Yesterday, it was too far away.
Now I am closer by a day.

This moment is beautiful - the anticipation:
The dreams, the possibilities, the expectation

For which I have so yearned;
Not yet arrived, nor been ruined

What I desire may come out well
Or, if luck so desires, go downhill

There is yet hope, at this instant -
Tomorrow may bring resentment

The precise point in time to find
The courage it leaves behind

To face the result, come what may -
To rise afresh in the dawn of day

Not a moment too soon, not one too late
What is life, if not an endless wait

For what the morrow brings?
The heart must take to its wings...

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Spare me the wisdom...

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Dr House was right. People don't change. Our attitude to things or approach to certain circumstances may change over time from experiences or from the right type of upbringing, but our deep instincts, never. At best, we learn to pretend that we are not thinking what we are; or to smother our raw emotions; or to present a polished exterior while dealing with our inner wilderness.

At certain moments, however, under the right amount of pressure, the real 'we' that with difficulty we had kept suppressed shatters the mask and springs forth...

If we are prepared to accept that people are like that, and they may open their eyes but will never really change, it puts us in a better position: for one thing, we realise our efforts to change them aren't going to work - which is frustrating of course, but then it is relieving as well. It sets us free.

I have been battling a demon of my own for many years. All this while, all these encounters, always the same outcome - and yet, I have not tamed the beast nor trained it nor brought it into any kind of control. It deludes me into thinking it is asleep or even dead; and when least expected, awakens with a roar, and rears its head, completely overpowering me. A battle of the brain and the heart, one might call it. The one, always pragmatic, always ready with wise counsel, eventually bows to the other, foolish, impulsive, adventurous. Every now and then, the cycle repeats, over and over. Tossing me up and down; and from north to south.

A string of disappointments follow, but interestingly, no regrets. Experiences, aren't those what we live for? Memories of adventures past, aren't those the only things that remain with us, when all else is lost?

There's no escape - ultimately I have come to terms with that fact. One can resist only for so long. The only way forward is to walk through the fire. Because there definitely is reprieve, on the other side. Besides, I know the road. I have taken it countless times.

I pretend that no one knows of the existence of the slumbering beast but I. Honestly, I have no idea. It must show, somehow or the other, a sudden flash. Our true nature cannot be hidden for long. I cannot change, but now that I know it, I can better equip myself for the stroll through fire.

I suppose I am grateful though. But for the existence of the demon and the unrest it drives me into, I would not be writing nonsense like this at all. Any writing, whether to a specific purpose or otherwise, is fuel to the fire of creativity. When the war rages on, as it takes me through its ups and downs, and stifles me with its maddening persistence, I find an outlet, an escape, an energy - in words.

This demon... this sleeping giant... and the battle I have to wage every day...

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We are capable of magic

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Why do we read stories?

For entertainment? For a distraction? For learning something new? For living a thousand lives without moving an inch from our seat?

All of the above, of course. And more.

But we also read to find answers. It's like opening an holy text when you're worried, and finding the answers you seek, on the random page you chose. Even in a depressing novel that ends in tragedy, you might find what you are seeking. A sliver of thought, a fragment of philosophy, a shred of an idea. A ray of hope.

Lately I have been finding answers everywhere, in every book I read. Every author has something new to show me. No, they don't solve my problems - if only they could! I've to do the solving all on my own. But they shine a new light on the darkness. They show me something I have forgotten or I have never known. They don't help me with my choice, but they stand by me when I make mine. They expand our horizons and remind us of possibilities.

But when we write, we cannot think of the lessons we ought to leave behind for the reader to find. The moment we do that, the purpose is defeated.

Which, for some reason, reminds me of the water beetle.

“The waterbeetle here shall teach 
A sermon far beyond your reach; 
He flabbergasts the Human race 
By gliding on the water's face 
With ease, celerity, and grace; 
But if he ever stopped to think 
Of how he did it, he would sink.”
- Hilaire Belloc

I come from a book crazy family. Everyone in my immediate circle could be found poring over a book or a magazine; always going to the library to discover something interesting; always talking of books, new and old. I never thought twice about it. I suppose I believed unconsciously that every family was like that. Much later, when I made friends with people who "never read much" I was stunned that such people did exist.

I leave you with a beautiful thought from the inimitable Carl Sagan: "Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."


(Photo: Sapna Book store, Elements Mall, Bengaluru)

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Pinnacle

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Sometimes life takes us to a pinnacle -
Just to show us the view:
How far we have come,
How far yet to go.

The treacherous climb we've undertaken
The barriers on our path we've broken

A rare glimpse before we walk on
Down and up the next hill
Of how our choices shaped our road;
How our lessons lead us on.

Thoughtless, impulsive decisions
Led to life changing situations...

Looking farther back; we'd see
The point where our life diverged;
We chose - yes, it was our own choice;
WE have shaped our future.

The lonesome, twisting trail did promise
The adventures we sought.

You break a twig, you make a way
You step on mud, You walk in rain;
You make your mark in history
Tiny, barely visible. Or gigantic.

Our choices have opened new doors
Our thoughts have led to actions

It's our eternal discontentment 
And our never-ending yearning
That fuel our search, push us on

They drive us up the hill...

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Stories

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I wake up, over a hundred years ago, in a civil war, where I am digging the debris for the rest of my unit. We were blown off the face of the earth by the enemy who knew we had no choice but to march forward and be devastated by their canons... The handful of us who are alive are frantically searching, digging, without a shred of hope...

Sometimes I am on this side of the war, sometimes that. No one knows why they are fighting, but they are bound by duty and some by a misplaced sense of hatred. A few firmly believe the war is right. Most have no clue.

I am digging, and digging - I find a hand - torn from the rest of his body...

Now I stand at a critical moment in history, as an important declaration is made that would change the course of the world.

No. I am the one making the declaration - which is carried across the country and possibly the globe. Which is recorded and listened to, numerous times by the generations yet to come. "... and consequently, this country is now at war with Germany..."

Don't mingle with the natives, they say. A picnic at the Caves sounds like a terrible idea. East is East... "Make yourself at home, Aziz."

I am in the twenty first century. Looking out the window at a countryside I have never seen. Its beauty escapes me. Everything looks lifeless because I have lost everything. And everyone. The journey I have to undertake terrifies me and, in all likelihood, is bound to end in failure.

Slaves - I see them suffer. I suffer with them. I surrender before their eyes. I have no promise to give them but more suffering.

I've loved and lost. Go fight for it, says the dying old man.

I am travelling into space, far from the world I have known, searching for a new home. Searching for a man who had run away, a long time ago.

A country is born at midnight. I fling stones at my own brothers and sisters as I follow my people towards the border...

I've survived. Battered and bruised, but alive. Barely.

Bengaluru, 2019, and a Life I can barely understand. The hand I have dug out of the ground grasps my arm. I writhe and struggle and I declare: "Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny... " The slaves will be free. Tell them not to lose hope, it is only a matter of days. There is nothing to see in the Caves. Only darkness - and madness. My ship plunges into the stars looking for an ancient power to help us. "Make yourself at home, Aziz." "May I really, Mr Fielding?"

I am trapped - with mirrors all around me. I see a thousand versions of myself - but are they all me?

These stories... they consume me. They aren't stories, they are Life. They are Hope. They're Guidelines. They're Reminders.

I live and breathe in them.

When do I step out from there and step into this life - the one I call real?

Where ends reality and where begins the illusion?

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