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)

COMING HOME a book by SMITHA VISHWANATH BOOK REVIEW

 

COMING HOME by SMITHA VISHWANATH

BOOK REVIEW

My introduction to Smitha’s writings was when I read ‘Roads - A Journey with Verses’ which she had co-authored. A book of poems that I had also reviewed and posted on my blog. I found her mellow and inclusive in expressing her feelings. She understands that change is the only constant in life. With a ‘never say die’ attitude, her writing is one of hope and courage. I have been an avid reader of her blog and poems.

In one of her poems ‘Hesitate and seal your Fate’ she writes-

Break the chains that hold you back,

Shatter the walls that make you slack,

Drop the baggage from your cart,

It’s never too late to start.

This positive streak is reflected in all her writings and one finds ample instances throughout her first novel. In a preface to one of her poems ‘Hush Daddy! Don’t fear’ she writes ‘Taking care of a parent isn’t always easy. It’s a vicious cycle of guilt, duty, love, and responsibility. As for the parent, there’s no refuting that aging is an extremely difficult phase of life and a lonely journey’. It was necessary for me to reproduce the above so that the reader has an insight into the author’s emotional nature, her sensitivity to the situations she finds herself in, and in the ultimate analysis that’s what ‘Coming Home’ is about. This is amply evident from the responses of the protagonist Shanaya: the way she handles the trauma of her mother’s death and the resultant loneliness which envelops her father. 

I have always felt that the first novel of an author is to a large extent autobiographical. The need to understand one’s own life and pour out the innermost feelings which we have allowed to lie dormant within us, to hold a mirror in front of us to see our perfections and imperfections and in the end feel fulfilled. Whether it is through fiction or through a straightforward autobiography. That’s what Smitha has done, woven, a fictional story (that I feel) around her own experiences in life into a sensitive story covering all facets of human emotions. Call it a love story, or a journey back to her roots ending in self-discovery, there’s no denying the fact that the reader will find the book absorbing and remind them of some of the classics they have read before. While the book has romance for the romantic, for the discerning banker her background as a banker is amply demonstrated in her descriptions of Shanaya’s work at the bank and the various situations she handles with aplomb. These are detailed and in no sense out of context and in a way will be of interest to the banker reader like me.

The depth of Smitha’s writing lies in her ability to delve deep into the characters she creates, the sensitiveness with which she handles them and brings them alive, so much so that the readers find themselves woven into the fabric of the book and an active observer of the events. In fact, I found myself interacting with the characters while reading the book. Apart from the characterizations, Smitha has recreated the places and situations brilliantly with her eye for detail and the felicity with which she handles her words.

A combination of a banker, poet, artist, and now an author, is a rarity - one mundane and the other in the realms of creative excellence. Smitha is one. She is a prolific blogger. I have been an avid reader of her blog posts and an admirer of her paintings. Her growth as an artist over the last three years has been phenomenal as is evident from her various posts on her blog and social media. She has brought a lot of this artistry while writing her first novel. I am sure many more will follow.

‘Coming Home’ is a book you will love. Read and review it on the book’s site on Amazon.in where it is available and don’t forget to reserve a place on your shelf. 

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

SYNOPSIS

To Shanaya the protagonist, Dubai is the place where she grew up, studied, worked, and as such, that was her home till the traumatic event of her mother’s death brings her back.  The first chapter gives us an inkling of what coming home is about.

Twenty-six-year-old, Shanaya, finds her idea of home and family ripped apart when she loses her mother. Her effort to drown herself in her job proves to be financially rewarding and her work is recognized by the organisation. But, even this is not enough to fill the vacuum in her heart or answer the questions, her mother’s sudden death had given rise to. In her quest for peace and the need to hold her family together, she leaves her job in Dubai and moves to India. The story finds Shanaya journeying across geographical planes and inner landscapes to finally reach ‘home'. Coming Home is a heartwarming story about self-discovery, relationships, loss, love, destiny, the choices we make, and how these choices eventually lead to what we are destined for. 

A JOURNAL OF LIFE’S LESSONS- PART 5 IN SEARCH OF SIGNIFICANCE

 

A JOURNAL OF LIFE’S LESSONS- PART 5

IN SEARCH OF SIGNIFICANCE

While talking to my grandson on FaceTime a few days ago (as I do every morning), I complimented him on a poem he had written in school. In fact, I was astonished that a twelve-year-old boy could write a poem running to about sixty lines on the American War of Independence. I reproduce a few lines to give an idea of his thinking process-

Fighting and fighting,

Waging a war,

Wondering what it’s worth,

What it’s worth fighting for.

In the years to come if the next generation continues with this mindset then I am sure that the world will become a better place to live in. What impressed me more was the quality of mentoring imparted at the school level in molding the thinking process of young minds.

As the subject for the day centered around poetry, I asked him whether he knew what ‘Haiku’ is. 

“Yes, it is a type of short-form poetry originally from Japan,” he replied.

“They taught you that in school?” I asked.

“Yes, we had a discussion on that,” he replied.

“I will read out a poem I had written, can you tell me whether it is a Haiku?” I asked. 

I then read out the following poem to him-

In the shade

of the redwood tree,

I stood, a fly,

In time and space,

Insignificant.

“No grandpa, it is strictly not a haiku. It is a short poem,” he said.

“And why so?” I asked.

“We were taught in school that a Japanese haiku consists of three lines or phrases with a 5-7-5 structure of syllables,” he said.

“But it does have other important features of a Haiku, like it is short and contemplative and has an emphasis on imagery,” I asked.

“Well, you can call it an English haiku,” he replied.

As I continued conversing with him I learned a few things myself, that it is never too early to understand nor is it never too late to learn. A few significant things arose from the conversation, though the keyword in the poem was ‘insignificant’. The most striking observation was when he said that ‘insignificant’ indicated ‘existential dread’. It left me groping for words. 

“And where did you learn that,? I asked.

“We had a discussion in school, and that’s where I heard about existential dread,” he replied.

“Do you know what it means?” I asked again.

“Oh, it is something to do with anxiety and finding a meaning in life,” he replied.

“But grandpa, no one is insignificant,” he continued “everyone is significant in some way isn’t it?”

“Yes, you have a point there,” I said and stopped.

I decided that it was time to change the topic of our conversation and veered off to more mundane things. I was afraid that we were stepping into an area that was far beyond the realms of childhood and disturbing the innocence that lay therein was not my idea of a conversation. He seemed to have touched a spot that had taken me years to understand and experience. I was also aware that he had only spilled out what he had picked up during the class. But he had touched a raw nerve when he talked of existential dread.

Several years ago (eleven to be exact), when on a visit to the US, I had the opportunity to visit the Muir Woods National Monument which is situated a few miles north of San Francisco. The 558-acre Monument preserves one of the last remaining ancient redwood forests in The Bay Area. Some of the redwoods are nearly 1,000 years old and reach heights of more than 250 feet. As I walked through the preserve I was overcome with a sense of awe looking at the humongous size of the trees: so tall and so broad around their trunks that you felt like just an insignificant dot in that landscape, for all purposes non-existent. As I found a place in a cavity of the trunk of one tree and stood there, my nephew who had accompanied me clicked a photo (the photo is attached along with this post). When I returned home to India and scanned through the photographs, this one stood out and I immediately penned the five lines reproduced above.  At that time what went through my mind was how small I looked compared to the giant redwood tree. 

It is only now, years later, that the question of ‘Existential dread’ rose again (after the talk with my grandson). I had long ago felt the anxiety, the dread of melting away into ‘Insignificance’, like Antoine Roquentin in Sartre’s novel ‘Nausea’. Throughout the novel, Roquentin grapples with uncertainty about his own existence and the existence of objects and people in the world around him. The seemingly impulsive act of picking up a pebble and throwing it into the sea overcomes him with nausea and the meaninglessness of his act. He is left searching for authenticity in his living. 

There is no general formula for tackling this anxiety of fading into insignificance. Each person carries his own burden and seeks out his own answers. Maybe that is why I found my way to becoming significant through my books. My first book ‘I am just An Ordinary Man’ arose out of this question of existential dread. Writing has given me release. 

In other words, it is the aspiration to be something of ‘Significance’.  But like my grandson said ‘no one is insignificant, everyone is significant in some way isn’t it?”