Thursday, February 16, 2012

Wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere

Being footloose has always fascinated me. The most Primeval instinct of mankind is to migrate from one place to another. I should be quite modest in confessing that my lust towards travelling is neither Atavistic nor some divine fate playing its cards on me. I simply pack my backpack, book the tickets, make arrangements for accommodation and just hit the road. This principle has worked wonders right from Barcelona to Varanasi, from jumbled streets of Old Delhi to Cobble-stoned pavements of Vieux Lyon.

While on travel, I tend to put those worldly emotions behind and crave for moments. The moments which gets into your memory as an indelible tattoo. The women selling Baguette in a marketplace in Straussbourg, The Brandenburger Tor in Berlin, The carnival in Cologne, The Taj mahal in moonlight, The Amber fort in Jaipur during sunset, the bicycle ride through nature-parks. Time defies its physical property and comes to standstill in those moments. It is worth trying twice. To paraphrase Christopher McCandless - "Life is all about meeting new people and having new experiences."

I feel at home when I am on the move. The constantly changing horizon, The used flight-tickets in my wallet, Restaurant bills, Visiting card of somebody whom you can't recollect.. these are my souvenirs of travel. The Window seat in the train and the sight of a display boards in new different languages..
these are my feel-good factors. Travel is a default expression of freedom. I reflect on myself better when I am on the go.
I tend to read about the culture and history of the place before I travel, so that once I set my foot on the destination I figure myself as someone getting there after a long break. I use 'Ick' instead of 'Ich' (German for 'I') when I go to Berlin. I greet an elderly man near Turkman gate in Shahjahanbad-Old Delhi with 'Assalamu Alaykum'. I feel the Catalonian pride in Barcelona and support VfB-Stuttgart in football.
I prefer local food rather than McDonalds, and I prefer 'talking to a stranger' over 'i-pod'.
It is just fascinating to see how civilizations in differ in certain things, and is exactly similar in certain other things.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

The Fire that burns into Smoke

They were burning something in my street corner. Dried leaves, Trash, Plastic covers, Newspapers,... The man behind the fire is a muffler-clad middle aged man. With a cigarette in his hand, he was looking at the fire with the pride of creator. Fire is a piece of modern art. It doesn't know rules.

The fire burns tall and upwards (Fire has never obeyed Newtons equations) spitting out flares. Its glow is not camouflaged by Sodium-vapor lamp. Fire, the mother of all constructive as well as destructive inventions by mankind, is standing in my street corner. It is one friend of mine with whom I can never dare to have a hug. It is fierce and has mercy on those who trespass its boundaries.

I have seen 'the fire', turning human-corpses to powder-ash in the banks of river Ganga at Varanasi. He is a destroyer, and in-front of him nothing else matters. I have seen 'the fire' in the metallurgical furnaces making out Industrial iron. I have seen him in happy moments in camp-fire. I have seen him in some accidents.


The Fire is my favorite of the five basic elements of nature. Invention of 'how to make fire' is one of the landmarks of human advancement. That holy moment made him superior over other Faunas. Even the most carnivorous'tic of animals still fear seeing the fire. Invention of fire allayed us from the fear of getting extincted in the survival-cycle.
Perhaps, Fire bypassed the evolution theory in making humans 'the strongest' albeit not the fittest.
'Fire service' is that name that we have given to put out fire. Even the most advanced of human construction techniques can't be complete without 'Fire exits'. You need to co-exist with this rude friend who lives on oxygen just like us.

Let there be light with some fire. It is a cold evening in Bangalore.



Tuesday, February 7, 2012

The Clockwork of Life

Deathbed. The White linen sheets, the smell of the disinfectant in hospital, the feel of my index finger touching the thumb, the continuous beep of some machine near my pillow. Moments in deathbed. Living this aesthetic moment in this epoch of time is indeed bliss. These, i know, are last moments of my human-hood before the 'I' inside me plunges into valley of unknown.

I try to recollect all my good memories in my life, in vain. All I end up, is recollecting images. That flower-vase in the windowsill, that bright wallpaper, that Che Guevara sticker in my motorbike, the solo boat-rides in lake near my house. Then, I try to remember people. The process of imagination then becomes like a giant collage of group photographs. It seemed like everyone else in the collage, except me, had got themselves caught in a big time bubble and hence frozen.
One, they never grew old. Two, their character never changed in my book of life. Strange. Indeed.

I had learnt quite a bit of science in my 65 years on my stay on earth, that I never indulged in any religious practices in the last 40 years of my life. There were religious men and Women, driven by their vedic intolerance towards Atheism, persuading me to follow a cult.
In this moment in deathbed, where the realms of Physics gives way to the Occult labyrinths of Metaphysics, I don't denounce my atheism. I am just a bunch of Cells. And they are going to stop replenishing in few hours. I believe ignorance of Science among masses is a sign of degradation of Civilization to Barbarianism.

I slumber, I hear people speaking, I slumber again. I try to communicate in vain. It is an irony that we still believe in languages for communication.
Every time my eyelid opens after a wink, I feel similar to my first kiss. Every time I move my head, I feel like an axe splitting my spine. It is the dusk as the Life sinks into horizon. The Sailor is going to dock his ship in the harbor.

I am not sure how I look like now. It has been months since I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I am not sure how I smell now. Damp squib of an old man, may be. The Nature still asks me questions, which my system is too tired to answer. The music is all gone in my ears. It is just like feathers of a caged bird. This state of mine is neither a curse nor a Punishment for my sins, It is just nature.

Wars, Famine, Child labor, Racism.. I forgive mankind in my deathbed and give'em one more chance to reform. Let there be light.