There is not one life which does not end. There were days when I was afraid of death, not because mine was next. But to lose a friend, a father or a mentor - to feel the loss that would stay alive. Death does scare me so, because of how ordinary it has always been. For you does not knock, nor toll the bell - but hark, it tolls, but it does not toll for thee.

Hear the bell and I weep for me.
For the one who's lost is really me.

posted at: 19:11 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: personal, death, me

Another day passes, so what if it was my birthday?

Maybe tomorrow's yours and the world won't care either way.

^Z ^z^z^z ...

posted at: 08:31 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, birthdays

It's a very liberating sensation. But for those who have become accustomed to seeing me with long and curly hair, this must come as a shock. The summer was getting to me and my other reasons to keep my hair uncut have long since disappeared. And so has my hair.

After having survived countless threats by several (near & dear to me) to have it cut during my sleep, my current crop of hair has been reaped. I've come to realize how much of a hassle it had been. Except for the bright April sun beating down on my head or the newly acquired intimate knowledge of A/C vent locations in office, everything else seems to be going according to plan.

And after all, it'll grow back. It's not like this is the first time I've doen this.

posted at: 20:39 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, me, haircut

And another one gone, and another one gone.

But I think I'll get along fine . I think I'll be alright, for real goodbyes these aren't.

posted at: 09:31 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: private, me, family

It's hard to let go of people.

Easier it is to push them away, drive them out of your world and pretend that your paths never ran together. To ignore them, avoid them, separate out their world from yours.

But sometimes the hard way's the easier, the short way goes on longer and life's too short to take the long way around.

posted at: 21:18 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, me, people

Echo ... echo ... echo.

Nothing but echoes.

posted at: 15:51 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: private, me

It's been a year.

A year, a really long year.

posted at: 12:42 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, family, death

Run away I did. Not from myself, nor my troubles.
But run away I did - from whom I'd have hurt.
Run away I did, for their pain I cannot borrow or share their sorrow.
Run away I did, if only to come back. Come back stronger.

Run away, I did. But no longer.

posted at: 15:15 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: me, private, life

Your stress level should be a measure of the work you're doing/done, rather than the work left.

At least, that's the official policy - but it's not quite working out per policy these days.

posted at: 18:44 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, me, philosophy

In memoriam - Monday, August 11th 2003.

That makes it four years now, but I remember like it was yesterday.

posted at: 08:30 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, experiences

I'm re-evaluating my current hairstyle. No, this is not out of any newly acquired fashion sense, but more due to image-mismatch reasons. I've never had a hair style - I've just had hair PERIOD. But leaving my hair as it is has of late become a slight problem. It apparently is a very misleading signpost.

So, a snippet from a portland street car experience. As I sat in there day dreaming, a young punk girl came and sat next to me. With all dyed hair and multiple ear peircings, she looks about 17 or 16. Hardly the type to skip a window seat to sit next to me. And then the conversation follows.

punk chic: what's up ? (*chin up*)
me: uh... just ... *mumble* ... stuff

punk chic: got any cigarettes ? can I lift a smoke ?
me: sorry, I don't have any. I don't smoke.

she: Oh, you don't smoke *tobacco* ?

And this is not the first time this has happened. Maybe the time is ripe for yet another transformation ?

posted at: 12:03 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, me, hair

Every year, I dread this day. A day when I take stock of my achievements, attempts and failures. But I guess this year too is different.

So many things happened last year. I did the right thing for some people - put family before my career, principles ahead of money, comfort of others ahead of mine. The priorities did change, but I still did some of the things I wanted - travelled a bit, read a pile of books and just hung out with friends for most of the time. Some things caused me to sit up and evaluate my life - they weren't nice things, but I'm better for having weathered them. In short, it does feel good to be twenty five !

And I got some interesting advice today: "Act your age. Drop the 'been there, done that' attitude and stop acting like you're 35".

I will, oh ... I will.

posted at: 05:31 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, birthdays

Apparently the median for my office persona is a straight faced automaton. But about a fortnight ago, all that changed. I realized the obvious solution in one of those moments of lucidity - "don't worry". It might sound simple, but it takes a lot of effort to side-swipe the society's influence to actually say don't sweat the small stuff to yourself. And it takes great tragedy too, to separate the small things from the large and the large from the inconceivable. So here's how the book would look like if I wrote a book about it - which I won't, but I still love the cover (click image for bigger version).

I've generally stopped being upset by small setbacks. Is only life, as they say it. But it took a quite large learning curve before I dropped into this chilled out world, where everything's cool (eventhough it is summer) and I get the important things done right. I guess I'm not the first one to actually go down this path. Rather than say it out myself, let me pull out those words from the pen of Bill Watterson and the mouth of that cheeky six-year-old.

But could that really be ? I suppose so ... it works at this end.

posted at: 05:00 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, me, philosophy

As 2006 dawned, I had dubbed it my Year of Travel - but little did I know that it would turn out into the Year I Stayed Home.

Not that I didn't wander far and wide - from the islands of Aotearoa, to the high reaches of the Himalayas. But in more sense than one, I've stayed home - for more than a quarter of this year, I've been with my parents & grand-parents (they looking after me, more than the other way around).

Personally, it has been a year of great losses and lessons. Punctuated regularly by the death of my role models - the baton passed on from hand to the other, with sadness, yet hopefully. As if something new, something great has been transferred from one vessel, too old to bear the load, onto one fresh, young and willing.

I've come to terms, in a manner of speaking, with life, death and taxes.

posted at: 22:11 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: personal, memories

Yeah, I had a father.

And then last saturday, I didn't.

[1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] .

May his soul rest in peace.

posted at: 21:33 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: public, family, death

Last thursday night, the last Karanavar of my family joined his ancestors. He was a teacher by profession and a painter by persuasion - a professor of zoology and a painter of landscapes. Even after retiring, he was one of the founders of the ICS entrance coaching centre in Cochin and continued teaching. I've never sat in one of his classes, but he was a teacher to me and much more.

As a young boy, I used to gravitate towards his house. The first and primary reason was that there was a fridge (where fridges and grandparents meet, there is a likelihood of icecream). But what kept me hanging around was his VCR (also the first one in the neighbourhood). Eventually having run out of Mickey Mouse cartoons to watch, I would end up watching his collections of nature documentaries. I used to while away entire afternoons, watching some of the best documentaries BBC has ever produced. If I've acquired some sense of admiration for nature, it starts from those happy days in the eighties.

And then there was his workshop. He used to play around with electronics (when he was 60+) and one of the first things I saw built was a water level detector for the water tank. Eventually, every house around wanted one of these - encased in old transistor case, hooked up to its speakers to wail out when the water got too full in the tank (while pumping it). For the first time in my life, technology was cool.

Some of his work

He was a stickler to healthy living, a strict schedule and regular exercise. Sunrise would find him in the temple, even though he wasn't a blind believer in God. He was an epitome of health, having never suffered from diabetes or blood pressure disorders, which were common in his contemporaries. But then cancer struck its blow. He survived the first onslaught, went under the knife and managed to fight it without chemotherapy. It was not be, here was a secondary, that too in his vertebra.

But he still had his legendary nerves of steel. When I visited him a week back, pressure on his spinal cord had cost him use of both his legs. But as I was talking to him, he launched himself into a lecture about the human anatomy and how the hip bears the load of the whole body. What took me by surprise was the obvious conclusion - he will never be able to sit upright, not even in a wheel chair. I haven't met too many who could talk so lightly of their own fate.

No matter how many times it happens, it never gets any easier to lose someone. But eventually, you've got to reconcile yourself to carrying a little bit of them inside yourself.

And then, as I helped my uncles lift him to his funeral pyre, the thought came unbidden - Goodbye ... for now.

posted at: 19:08 | path: /me | permalink | Tags: personal, family, death