SUBMERGED 2 - THE DAY CHENNAI SANK AGAIN

 

SUBMERGED 2 - THE DAY CHENNAI SANK AGAIN

It was in the first week of December 2015 eight years ago that Chennai was submerged by incessant rainfall, the flooding in the city was described as the worst in a century due to the North East monsoon which hits the East Coast of India during November and December. I was in Chennai, marooned along with so many others, without power, and water (which had to be lugged from the sump on the ground floor to my first-floor apartment, one of the lucky few). One had to grab whatever was available in the surrounding provision stores. Luckily there was no flooding within the apartment perimeter or the surrounding area. In that sense we were lucky.

When the power was restored after three days and the wifi turned on, I sat that night to write ‘Submerged - The Day Chennai Sank’ in my blog. That was my way of venting my frustration at what had happened and why the city was reduced to shambles. 

This year it was the cyclone Michaung which battered the city and dumped as much water or maybe more to leave thousands homeless and most of the population without food, drinking water, and power. The signs had been ominous at least a week before 4th December when it finally hit Chennai. All along the Met department was doing their job, tracking the course of the cyclone, and the others(?), were just watching without any perceptible movement on their part to take stock of the situation, and initiate measures to safeguard the city and the population. After all, they had eight years to implement these measures from the lessons learned during the last disaster. We were told that Rs. 4000 crores had been spent in implementing the infrastructure and stormwater drainage systems to prevent such an eventuality. Looking at what happened and how badly the city was affected it is obvious that all that money had literally gone down the drain or into —----(?). The lessons hadn’t been learned because there were more important priorities.

This time around I was away in Hyderabad. Should I say that I was lucky I was not in Chennai? Though it is a fact, I still feel a sense of having run away from the scene. I have been busy listening to the coverage in the media and seeing the visuals and first-hand reports from my friends and relatives. The situation has been grave and as I write this I am told that there are still some areas where normalcy is yet to be restored. The scenes were very familiar, and 2015 was repeated with increased intensity. I thought that the best way to express my anguish was to repeat what I had written in my earlier blog. Though eight years old, it is still very much relevant, for nothing has changed, nothing constructive has happened. 

Although the monsoon is an annual occurrence and cyclones can be expected during this period, this year also the city was in no state of preparedness. The lessons of 2015 had not been learned. At that time I had raised several questions and made observations as to who is to be held responsible for these recurring mishaps. 

Reproduced below is a portion of my earlier post, for like everything my views remain the same -

‘Today when we look at what has happened by way of development, we find – 

1) unauthorized, unplanned, and illegal structures have sprouted all along the banks of the rivers and elsewhere 

2) there is only a very small fraction of the large number of water bodies that existed in and around the hinterland of Chennai still left, and encroachments have happened at such places hindering the natural course of water flow

 3) the real estate boom has given rise to the proliferation of housing societies built in low-lying areas where once a lake existed and (today most of them are flooded). This has been made possible due to the dangerous nexus between the unscrupulous elements in the construction sector, the land grabbing quick buck-making politicians, and the respective departments in the government who do not appear to have made a sincere and serious study of the feasibility and safety of such projects before giving clearances. The result is that a majority of the people aspiring to own a house have taken a huge risk investing in these projects. 

4) If a mapping of the entire region indicating the low-lying areas and lake beds has been done, it does not appear to have been made public, and the ordinary citizen is not aware, nor have the builders been transparent enough to reveal the hazards. Ultimately, one should lay the blame on the agencies involved for giving clearances. Who knows (or rather everyone knows) what considerations are involved.  

I could list out any number of failures and shortcomings of the administration. But have we ever asked ourselves the question why this is so? To what extent have we ourselves contributed to this sorry state of affairs? Isn’t it fair to admit that we also have a major share in allowing this to happen?

Hopefully, this disaster should open the eyes of the ordinary man to the game being played. Though stormwater drains have been planned and implemented, they have not been fully completed and where completed, periodic maintenance is not evident. Roads are dug up by different departments like the electricity board for laying cables and again dug up by the water and sewage department for laying pipelines without any proper resurfacing of the road. The pathetic state of the roads is evidence enough. We already have large potholes and caving-in roads in some places, aggravated by this present spell of rains and I am sure some patchwork will be done immediately, which within a few months will once again revert to their pathetic state. No one is held accountable for carrying out such substandard and shoddy work. One hears that there was opposition to the proposal for relaying the roads with concrete. One can only surmise that if that is done the need for maintenance will drastically reduce and with it, the annual contracts for relaying the roads would diminish, and with it …… (No elaboration required I guess). It's ‘consideration’ and not 'necessity', that appears to be the rule for awarding work contracts.

This disaster has brought to the fore the fact, that it is the ordinary man on the street, our armed forces, NDRF, and other voluntary agencies that emerge as the heroes of the day; whether it is rescuing marooned people and ensuring that supplies are delivered to the affected. People have thrown open their homes to house the affected. For the first time, I have seen Chennai rise as a single united force without relying on the unreliable support of the political class to battle the forces of nature and ensure the city's survival. Well, the politicians whichever party they belong to have engaged themselves in blame games, trying to garner credit for the rescue efforts that have been undertaken. 

What can one say except that the Elections are imminent and this ‘Disaster’ is an ‘Opportunity’!

A TRIBUTE TO MAMI (Smt. LAKSHMI RAMACHANDRAN) ON HER BIRTH CENTENARY

 

A TRIBUTE TO MAMI (Smt. LAKSHMI RAMACHANDRAN) ON HER BIRTH CENTENARY

It was in July 1977 (46 years ago) that I first met Mami, my future mother-in-law, Mrs. Lakshmi Ramachandran. As I set foot into the precincts of what was to become my second home, I was overcome by an aura of affection and compassion that seemed to permeate every nook and corner of the house. I did not have to look far inside for its source. There she was standing at the door to welcome me and my mother. A stately lady with a smile and eyes that conveyed a genuine human being. That was the moment when it dawned on me, that I belonged there and Revathi, her daughter, became my wife. 

Like all her nephews and nieces and there were quite a large number of them, I called her Mami, but she treated me like a son. Many of the anecdotes I have listened to narrated by them and other close friends of the family, would dwell on the affection showered on them and the generosity of Mami and Mama. Invariably on weekends, there would be a congregation of people at the house and I have seen Mami playing the perfect hostess. She and Mama enjoyed having people around.

They say that behind every man’s success, there is a woman, and Mami more than filled that role in respect of her husband. They were the ‘Universal Couple’ whose home was an open house. Mami was a strong personality, affectionate yet putting her views across to her children in no uncertain terms. You find the effects of that childhood upbringing so much so that all her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren still remain as a close-knit family supporting and being there for each other, lending a shoulder in times of physical and emotional crisis. 

I was the only outsider mappillai(son-in-law), but soon became an integral part of the household. Unlike the others who were in Madras and had the occasion to interact with her frequently and be the recipient of her affection, we were the only ones who lived far away, in Gujarat, but we made sure to be in Madras during every vacation and attend all the functions in the family to bask in the warmth of the sunshine cast by Mami and Mama. My daughters eagerly looked forward to these visits to be with their cousins and be pampered by their grandmother and they all formed a strong bond among themselves under her affectionate care. 

In later years especially after Mama’s passing away and her own failing health she still retained that smile and the twinkle in her eyes whenever she was in the midst of her near and dear ones. And when she departed it was as if a large banyan tree had fallen. Though its shade is no longer available, her memories continue to light up our lives.

A hundred years have passed since she came into this world, and when she went away to the higher realms, she left her indelible footprints for us, as if to remind everyone, that ultimately it is selfless love and affection that remain and that is what we shall remember of her. She was a Karma Yogi and on the centenary of her birth, we will be paying homage to her soul only by keeping alive the ideals by which she lived, spreading the word of Love, Compassion, Humility, and Commitment.

IN NEED OF APPRECIATION

 

Painting by my daughter Maitreyi

IN NEED OF APPRECIATION

“You can’t just write and write and put things in a drawer. They wither without the warm sun of someone else’s appreciation.”― Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“Appreciation has tremendous power. A beautiful thing is not beautiful until someone appreciates it.”― Debasish Mridha

It all started when in the course of a conversation with a friend of many years I expressed, that I do feel demotivated, and a sense of disappointment when I find that the books I had written have not received the exposure they deserve in the public domain, he immediately looked at me and said-

“I find it strange to give comments in a public place, even when these are very appreciative ones, which as per the cliche, must be given publicly. Why? To encourage? No, I do not agree. you cannot encourage any creativity just by appreciating it publicly. You can only enjoy it post facto and hence, your appreciation of any creative work, is for your private personal consumption; you thereby wish to acknowledge to you and not to others or the author that you enjoyed that work of creation. Keep writing for the sake of expressing your creativity, your originality, and your special worldview; and all this for yourself.”

Another good friend of mine over the years called to tell me that she had at last purchased my book ‘I am just an Ordinary Man’ and finished it within two days. She said she liked it. But when I asked her to make a review and put it up on the site, she had only this to say, “I have known you for such a long time and could connect with a lot of what is written there, but it is not possible for me to write a review, for it could be a very biased view and therefore not an honest one.” I respected her viewpoint and did not pursue it, but still, I could not understand her logic.

I have often wondered why I keep asking people, mostly friends and close relatives whether they have read my books and if so, request them to write a review and post it on Amazon and similar sites from where they had purchased the book. I have done that every time I completed one and published it. Every time I write a post and put it in my blog, I share it on my social media and keep track of the number of views and comments posted. Suffice it to say that my blog has registered more than 100,000 views from 300 posts in the last 10 years since I became active with my writing.  And to be truthful it has given me immense satisfaction and ego fulfillment. But is this what I write for? 

I have asked myself this question many times and have not been able to answer it. Is it because I want to get across to others so that I am understood as to what I am, or because I am trying to understand more about myself? Is it because I am seeking recognition and adulation or want to be a commercial success? It could be a combination of all these. But I know one thing, I write because I like it. I also like it when someone says that they like what I write. I accept the truth that the integrity of any writing or for that matter any art form stems from an honest exposition of one’s own feelings. There is definitely a dilution in your expressions when you cater to commercial considerations. When a reader/ reviewer says that his appreciation is for his own private consumption and hence does not believe in putting it up in a public space, I cannot question, for this is an individual choice. But for me the creator it is my expectation that my creation reaches a wide audience, for there is a joy in sharing, a satisfaction of a need to be understood, and a need for adulation. This is especially true of any creation that is put up in the public domain for consumption. 

I came across a quote of Marcel Duchamp that puts the role of appreciation of a creative work in the right perspective -

“The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.”

All great works of Art or literature would have remained undiscovered if they had not received the patronage or appreciation of a vast majority of the spectators. The great sculptures and the paintings of Michelangelo would not have been possible but for the patronage of the church. Or take the case of Van Gogh, his paintings would not have been available to us if not for the efforts of his brother Theo. Though, during his lifetime Van Gogh never sold a painting it was left to Theo to bring it out and let the world discover him. Yes, both Michelangelo and Van Gogh created out of the intense passion by which they were consumed. So is it true of Music and literature. I would not have read all the books that I have if I had not found them in the public domain. Whether I liked them or not is an individual preference. 

It was in this context that I asked my daughter (she is an artist herself in her own right and has been an experimenter in various art forms from Surrealism to the abstract) if appreciation is a personal thing, a one-is-to-one event and something that does not need to be done on the public domain? Isn’t it enough to create and find an avenue for your passions and be content and fulfilled with the end product? I reproduce below the response that I received from her -

 “Art is a form of expression, not just contemplation. The reason it is shared with the world is the same as the reason you start conversations. To connect with the people who may resonate with you. Therefore appreciation and feedback, even a critical one... anything that starts a dialogue is most welcome. Anything that says that you were seen or heard by someone who wishes to engage with you. Otherwise, all the words could go unwritten and all the images can remain in the recesses of your mind without being brought out on the canvas. Not everyone finds the comfort in direct conversations and not everyone finds people who can hold conversations in the metaphors or imagery that they are comfortable with in their immediate circle. That is why they reach out into the world through art. That is why art is called a form of expression. Saying an artist becomes great when they stop looking for engagement is untrue. The art may become great but the artist stays miserable for lack of connection.”

Lastly, I have to add that despite all those assertions of creating for one’s own passion and fulfillment which I have been trying to convince myself of, I have to admit that being appreciated is an important emotional need of the creator. It is a motivation that he looks for to help him on his journey of creation.

DO YOU HAVE THE ‘TIME’?

 DO YOU HAVE THE ‘TIME’?

Last night, as has been my wont the last few months, I opened my laptop, sensing an urge to write something to end the drought of the last three years since I completed and published my book ‘The Diary of Mrityunjay’. And as usual, I kept staring at the blank screen as blank as my mind was at the time. So I decided to listen to music. As providence would have it the first album that came to my mind was Pink Floyd’s ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’. I realized that it was the 50th Anniversary since it was released. They have been one of my favorite groups ever since I passed out of college and when I started working this was the first LP album that I acquired. Years or rather decades later I realized that it had become a collector’s item.

As I listened to the haunting music and the lyrics of their song ‘Time’ I was shaken out of a stupor that had gripped me the last few years. I am reproducing below two stanzas that started me off on this post (though I would love to have the entire lyrics of the song here for the benefit of my readers, this would suffice)-

Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain

You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

Though I never did relish lying in the sun, the summers being hot in this part of the world and I never was an outdoor cat. But I did relish the rain, sitting by the window and watching the veil of water pouring outside, also I did not mind getting wet; rather I enjoyed it when there was a gentle drizzle caressing my face, like during certain evenings, when I was on my evening walk along the seashore. I was not young then, but one day I did realize that ten years had passed since those magic moments occurred. Since I was past the age of being in a race, it did not really bother me whether I had missed the starting gun. But looking back (when I was young and felt life was long), I realize that I had missed the starting gun through my procrastination. Three decades have passed by, and now I feel I have missed out on a lot of things, a lot of opportunities. Time does not wait, it flows and you cannot swim against the tide to return to where you left off. That brings me back to  another song ‘Yesterday’ by The Beatles, another of my favorites-

Yesterday

All my troubles seemed so far away

Now it looks as though they're here to stay

Oh, I believe in yesterday

Suddenly

I'm not half the man I used to be

There's a shadow hanging over me

Oh, yesterday came suddenly

Now it appears that Yesterday did come suddenly, so much so I never realized it had gone. So will it be true for today, tomorrow, and the day after - 

Fifty years ago, I wrote my first few lines of poetry. It was listlessness then, and it is listlessness now. It was then an awakening, arising from observing all that was happening around me. Thrown out into uncharted waters from the relatively safe haven of an academic life, left to fend for myself and exposed to the realities of the big bad (good) world, choose what you will, but it was like waking up from a stupor. I have written this in detail in the Introduction to my first book, ‘I am just An Ordinary Man’. Suffice to say I wrote this four decades later in 2014-

Somewhere I hear a clock chime,

Marking the passage of fleeting time,

Somewhere I hear the motor’s whirr,

Slowly from my slumber I now stir.

Back in 1973, it was a wake-up call, an alarm set off, to remind me that I have a lot to express and say. I was young then and it took me 40 years to say it completely. Now I am 73 years old (funny how the figure 73 occurs in both). Now I am 5 books old (took me nine years to do that, in any case not forty years). Now it is not a crisis of conscience but an urgency. That is where the song by Pink Floyd struck a chord.

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time

Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way

The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say

When I look back and read what I had written in my book ‘I am just An Ordinary Man’ in the chapter ‘Silence’, nearly ten years ago, it was prophetic - It’s been two years since I started traversing back on the road I had trodden. Now a certain lethargy has crept in and a reluctance to continue writing. It is nearly four decades (now of course it is five decades) since that day in February 1974 when I first felt the anxiety of existence and a fear of death. Now the rumblings have started once again. Only this time it was an evaluation of all the beliefs I had built around me in order to remain in a self-imposed exile. 

Yes the days get shorter and time is elusive, it slips through your fingers like sand. But something keeps pushing me saying that the song isn't over and I do have something more to say (unlike the last line of the above stanza of Pink Floyd). Remember Robert Frost’s famous stanza from his poem ‘Sitting by Woods on a Snowy Evening’-

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Before I end this post I will return to the first few lines of Pink Floyd’s song-

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way 

This was exactly what has been happening to me. That is why this post, to break the stranglehold imposed by my own procrastination. I do not wish to miss the starting gun once again.

And the song continues.

A PREFACE - THE DIARY OF MRITYUNJAY- PART 2

 

THE DIARY OF MRITYUNJAY- PART 2

PREFACE

Calamities have a way of throwing up questions that we have evaded all along and opening wounds that we have long since buried and forgotten lest they hurt us again. That is why, perhaps calamities or disasters happen, to reassess our role in this world. My last book ‘The Diary of Mrityunjay’ ar0se out of the disaster that occurred during the floods in Kedarnath. Caught in the midst of this calamity Mrityunjay is forced to re-evaluate his life and move forward towards a resolution of the angst which had all the while enveloped him. He returns after his sojourn, a changed individual who learns to cherish what it is to live and what it is to love, having gathered all the wisdom from the cloister of monks who reside content in the knowledge that life is not only gathering knowledge of the self but that there is a deeper purpose which embraces humanity and giving back in the form of service, compassion, and empathy. I recollect a passage from Will Durant’s book ‘Fallen Leaves’ - “I know that life is in its basis a mystery; a river flowing from an unseen source and in its development an infinite subtlety; a ‘dome of many-colored glass’, too complex for thought, much less for utterance.” 

The Covid pandemic of 2020 was perhaps the greatest calamity to have happened to humankind in the last hundred years. What started as a localized infection spread its tentacles all across the globe threatening to decimate the population. Slowly did we wake up to the truth of our vulnerability to an enemy created by our own misadventures. Leave alone the number of people who succumbed, it left behind a trail of fear and uncertainty in the minds of those who survived. It left people without homes and drove them across the length and breadth of the country in search of sustenance. The migrant became the symbol of human frailty. As they trudged towards their homes, hundreds of miles away, clinging on to whatever transport came their way, the less fortunate pushed themselves on foot in a desperate bid to be with their dear ones. On the road, hundreds perished. For those who remained in the comfort of their homes, it was confinement and incarceration. The virus did not spare the rich and poor alike; no distinctions between the mighty and the weak. It was impartial. But the never say die human spirit once again shook off the shackles and slowly but surely moved towards resolution in containing this threat. As 2020 drew to a close a light flickered in the distance. The vaccine, a result of human endeavor, brought with it the hope that the enemy can be contained. This flicker slowly grew in size and towards the end of 2021, the virus could be contained though not wholly eradicated. It still lurks in the background, but we have learned to live with it and in the process brought about a change in our lifestyles to adapt to the new life order. This has led to our questioning the basic premises on which we had built up our lives. 

I did not escape the clutches of the virus either, though it was mild, the circumstances and the surrounding environment did affect me to the extent that I found my mental faculties blocked and a sort of depression set in. I was not able to express myself in the only way I knew- writing.  Though in the initial period of the shutdown, I found that the isolation imposed gave me the space to do some writing and that’s when my book ‘The Diary of Mrityunjay’ was completed. From the end of the year 2020 for a year thereafter it was a shutdown for me personally. The year 2021 was a washout. 2022 started slowly and on a more positive note. 

I knew I had a promise to keep- Mrityunjay had given a glimpse of a sequel at the end of the book and this is where I restarted, to maintain the continuity and make it easier for the reader to connect. Mrityunjay once again finds himself in the midst of another crisis and the awakening that had occurred during his two-year sojourn following the Kedarnath disaster being reawakened. 

A JOURNAL OF LIFE’S LESSONS - PART 6 FROM ORDINARY MAN TO MRITYUNJAY

 

A JOURNAL OF LIFE’S LESSONS - PART 6

FROM ORDINARY MAN TO MRITYUNJAY 

I reproduce here a first selection of passages from my books- a journey of learning,  an inquiry into life, and an acceptance of reality. It is through the characters in my books that I have tried to put forward not only my philosophy of life, but also what I have learned through my interactions with people who have been part of the journey. Ultimately the journey of life is one's own and the paths are many, but like the river finally flows into the ocean and merges with it we also merge with the undefined Absolute

“In that slowly descending darkness as the moon ascended and a gentle breeze blew, I found myself enveloped in that stillness and a strange sort of bliss. I let lay the existential dilemmas somewhere within me for the moment and allowed myself to be immersed in that beyond.”

― Darkness and Beyond: A Medley of Many Lives

“When you have stripped yourself bare like the trees in the fall season you will be standing totally barren with nothing to hide”

― I am just An Ordinary Man

“Learn to listen to the river and flow along with it. Its waters soothe and heal everyone. It does not distinguish between caste, creed, or religion. I have learned a lot from it, for the doctor’s duty is also similar- to soothe, heal without distinction.”

― The Diary of Mrityunjay

“He made me realize that life was not all darkness and that it can be dispelled with the light of hope. I learned the value of faith and loyalty in the conduct of one’s life, for that was how he led his.”

― Darkness and Beyond

“How can one ever write the story of one’s life when it has not ended? If he does, then it is an incomplete story. But isn’t it a paradox that one has to be alive to write one’s own story, a story which is never complete till he is dead”

― I am just An Ordinary Man

“The most important thing I learned from my parents is that there is nothing like sympathy, it is only compassion that one should feel. My parents have given me love and I have understood what compassion is from them. That in the ultimate analysis has made me what I am. I am what I am; there is no other state I can be. There is no question of ‘If’ in my vocabulary. A majority of us spend our time thinking about the choices we have made in life and how things could have been different if we had chosen otherwise. We have made certain choices because they were within our power to do so. When we start thinking that things could have been different and maybe we would have led a better life than our present state, we start feeling unhappy and miserable. We are helpless when we start questioning our origins and why we were not born under more favorable circumstances. We question God and blame him for all the misery that we are undergoing now. There are no answers when someone comes along and says it is due to our Karma and we are atoning for our sins in a previous birth. All the same we are miserable. Most of the time, we end up blaming extraneous reasons for our mistakes and retreat into a shell of self-pity. If”

― Darkness and Beyond: A Medley of Many Lives

“I have learnt my lessons. I have realized that the world is real and our existence a necessity. Life and death are certainties and so are all the gamut of emotions that we experience on our journey. The earlier we accept this, the easier would it be to live. One does not learn by moving away. One learns by sticking it out and facing the truth of our fallibilities and that alone is the only way to overcome them”

― THE DIARY OF MRITYUNJAY

T

“I stand exorcised of the ghosts of the past,

That haunted and hounded me,

Through the corridors of the path I had tread,

And through the halls of time.”

― THE DIARY OF MRITYUNJAY

“For me the human condition is paramount, and asking ‘Why’ is not in my scheme of things. I have learned to accept what life throws at me because I alone can face it. That’s why I do not talk very much about a Creator, God, or a Supreme Being coming down to solve my problems.”

― THE DIARY OF MRITYUNJAY

“It is the impact that the poem had on my own thinking process and set the tone for the first and longest story in this book, ‘Autumn Leaves.’ Having seen around me the reality of aging and loneliness predominant, and the younger generation moving still further away and the older ones slowly learning to cope with being by themselves. This story traces the disintegration of families from what was once a joint one with a ruling patriarch and the other members strewn around not far away, to single units ultimately spread out in far and distant lands; the slow but perceptible shifting away in distance and relationships and acceptance of which as a reality was unalterable. The advancement in knowledge and the growth in opportunities away from home, contributing to a more independent individual learning to live life on his own terms, though desirable, has led to the splintering of families and in a sense an inevitable reality of being left alone as one aged.”

― Autumn Leaves : Seasons of Life

“I also liked to sit with a mug of beer in one corner of the room and watch the others. This was for the first time I realized that someone was also watching me. That happens I guess, for when we are bored with ourselves we watch others.”

― Darkness and Beyond: A Medley of Many Lives

“The way a person laughs is perhaps the closest indicator to his actual self. “So”

― Darkness and Beyond: A Medley of Many Lives

“One finds one’s own answers to the questions in life, if and when they arise. They are as old as you are and that’s why I am slightly surprised at your question. You see I belong to another generation and it has not been easy to shake away all the beliefs that I have grown up with. But in the process I have shed a lot of the baggage of my predecessors and I am sure that my children are doing the same. I am awake to the demands of this changing world and what was God to me must be different now, though the basic questions of life will remain. You will find your own God and give him a new form. But why did you suddenly ask me this question?” “Sir,”

― Darkness and Beyond: A Medley of Many Lives

“It was strange but the name’s origin lies in a dream I had, the only thing of which I remember is of a woman who appears therein and when I ask her name, she replies ‘Amora.’ I do not know whether my subconscious was at work or whether hidden infatuations had surfaced.”

― Autumn Leaves : Seasons of Life

“it is only the level of acceptance in a relationship that is a true indicator of its strength and determines its longevity. We have accepted and respected each other’s space and worked together for the welfare of the children and that’s how the family stays as a family. Compromise really does not work, for like a truce, it is a temporary call to end hostilities. It could break down any moment.”

― Darkness and Beyond: A Medley of Many Lives

“As I watched him get into his car and drive away I was reminded of my own self thirty- five years ago when such questions on relationships and the uncertainty in our lives had also haunted me. But I had found answers for myself.”

― Darkness and Beyond: A Medley of Many Lives

“Looking back, I suspect a number of them did last as there was no other option. But whether then or now, it has always been the absence of empathy; insensitivity on the part of one and a weakness on the part of the other to recognize emotional and physical needs of each other that has been the reason for conflicts in a relationship.”

― Darkness and Beyond: A Medley of Many Lives

“As you grow older you come to appreciate those little things and laugh at your own idiosyncrasies. It is when you are able to do this, you move towards a total acceptance of the person that you are and life becomes easier and comfortable. Your relationships become genuine, for you do not hide much.”

― I am just An Ordinary Man

It is very difficult to accept one’s own mortality. But that is the truth, one day we shall cease to be. I have never believed in divine interventions or an afterlife, for these only tend to distract you from the present reality – that we live and should every moment be aware that life is what you make of it. Though I have never been religious and do not look at the scriptures or the rituals as that ordained by a supreme being who sits in judgment over our actions, Karma Yoga appeals to me for it is a path of selfless action. I look at Krishna as an evolved being not as a God who through his Gita tried to tell us that one has to face the results of one’s actions. Buddha was a wise man who learned to cope with the miseries of the world and prescribed a path for the rightful conduct of one’s life and ending one’s suffering. While one was God the other was the Enlightened One. Both of them placed before you the promise of a better afterlife for rightful actions in this life. I have had a fair share of experiences in this life to make me realize that it is only compassion and empathy that ultimately leads one to fulfillment. I am not a scholar or have an in-depth knowledge of the scriptures and can never enter into a debate as to what is right and what is wrong. It is futile, for everyone looks at the world from his own view. We spend most of our life debating whether the world is because of divine intervention or just an accident. Understanding the world requires one to set aside prejudices and stop being judgmental. 

• Autumn Leaves, Enigma (this is the philosophy of life expressed by the main character Atulya in Enigma the third story of the book)