Category: Musings

Random thoughts on random subjects

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Musings

The Book Exchange

Books On A Shelf
Books On A Shelf

After years of internet addiction, I found myself doubting my ability to read a physical book. Is it possible to go back to reading a paper book – cover to cover?

Books On A Shelf
Books On A Shelf

Travelling by train, after many years, was, at once, both exciting, and disheartening. We were to be confined to the train for a total of 60 hours. No access to a computer, or the internet. It was a welcome break. But that meant I’d have to find something else to do… Perhaps read a book?

I stared at the long row of bookshelves – there were perhaps close to two hundred books. Comprehensive books on all aspects of business, a twenty four-volume set on crafts, course material on computer science, old and yellowing documentation on world history, several rather heavy books purchased through mail offers, essays on English literature, general knowledge, several abridged (poorly edited) children’s illustrated classics, and an assortment of books on health, spirituality, philosophy, and even palmistry!

Sandwiched in between these books, were some books I recognised. Some purchased, some gifted, and some inherited – all with a particular memory attached. The weathered ‘As You Like It’, which I had requested my parents to buy so that I could read it during the summer vacations. The ‘Little Women’ that my aunt had gifted me for my tenth birthday, with a handwritten note inside. The unabridged ‘Pride and Prejudice’, which I had already read thrice!

For the past several years, bringing books had been, unofficially, banned. But if I brought them temporarily, it wouldn’t hurt – much. So two days before our departure, I struck a deal with a friend of mine. We were going to have a book exchange!

On the staircase of a busy metro station, to the amusement of passengers, two girls sat, chatting – catching up on each other’s lives, pondering over some serious topics, and, at times, giggling uncontrollably. As the evening wore on, we decided to call it a day and presented our books to each other.

On the way back, I stared at the paper bag – six books. I hadn’t read a book – cover to cover – for several years. The only exception being textbooks. I began doubting myself. Would I be able to read through even one book, leave alone six? I picked one up and started reading the first paragraph. I felt uneasy. I couldn’t comprehend it. I read it again. I heard the train approaching the platform, and shut the book.

At home, I lined up the books, alongside the other things, I was to pack into the suitcase. There is something about a book, which has been read by a friend, which has a worn out cover, and whose pages are yellow. After pacing up and down a few times, I picked one up. Just a few pages…

A little while later, I looked up at the clock. It was well past dinner time. Everyone had finished eating, and the packing up, for the journey, had commenced.

Time had flown by, and just like that, I had given myself up to a fictitious world. My surroundings changed, I left reality behind. The repeated calls for dinner, had fallen on deaf ears. I was blissfully unaware of the mounting anxiety around the house, as everyone was packing up their suitcases. I just read.

I do not recall ever sitting and reading, without falling asleep. I had doubted my ability to read. And now, I was devouring a book like a ravenous beast.

Before I knew it, I’d finished three-quarters of the book, and nothing, but the realisation that there were only a few hours left for our departure, could part me from the book! I packed the books in, and couldn’t wait to finish reading my newly acquired books.

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Hobbies Musings

A Few Of My Favourite Things!

Bead Box
Sea shells and Seeds, Pebbles and Beads

This photograph, reminds me of that beautiful song from “The Sound Of Music”. With all due respect to the original, here is my version:

Small rounded pebbles and sea – washed sea shells,
Colourful beads, all tied up in strings,
These are a few of my favourite things!

And the original lines:

When the dog bites, when the bee stings*
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favourite things
And then I don’t feel so bad

Bead Box
Sea shells and Seeds,
Pebbles and Beads

 

Photograph edited by my good friend

* I have experienced both!

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Musings

A Long Time Ago…

Treasure
An Assortment Of Beautiful Paper

Once upon a time, little children made greeting cards using many things – the chief ingredient was, however, called paper. Many children enjoyed it, but some didn’t. So they employed adults to make them, or went to the marketplace.

Then one day, something called the ‘Internet’, entered the kingdom. It didn’t like what it saw, and started its quest to find an alternative. It made friends – lots of friends. It was knowledgeable, and paid regular visits to everyone. It became very popular, and eventually conquered the kingdom of ‘Human Race’.

Under the new rule, greeting cards lost favour with the peasants. Many children, adults, and trees were happy with this, and they all are trying to live happily ever after…

*  *  *

I was rummaging through a shelf, looking for a piece of cardboard. It was the bottommost shelf – home to a lifetime of scrap paper, greeting cards, fancy and colourful invitations.

Treasure
An Assortment Of Beautiful Paper

Since childhood, paper has fascinated me. That bottom shelf, is my treasure – the different colours, and textures, some glossy and many handmade. While most were addressed to us, there were a few which were given to me because I loved collecting them.

As children, we made our own cards, and gladly received those made by our friends. By the time we left school, the concept of anything hand-made, was all but dead. Even though I would have loved to make a card, I feared, that it would be misconstrued as a miserly act. So we occasionally bought cards.

With the advent of the internet, and increasing emphasis on saving trees, cards have become electronic. And why not – it saves trees, and a lot of space in our cupboard!

After finding what I was looking for, I began shoving everything back inside, when a few cards caught my eye. A beautiful batik card, which was mailed to us by relatives, and a hand-made card. Both beautiful in their own ways.

Handmade
A small portion of the handmade card

I unfolded the hand made one. In a world ruled by everything electronic, my friend had taken out the time to make something for me. It was the last hand-made card I received, and perhaps the one I will treasure the most…

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Musings

A Whimsical Post


24 June 2012

After spending an evening at my aunt’s house, I thought I had an idea for another blog post. I didn’t know what I would actually write – I had just one line.

When we were about to leave, my aunt asked me if I needed a diary. “I have a plain unruled diary. If you want, you can take it”, she offered. It was kept on a coffee table near a wall. I picked it up, and flipped through it. It had a quotation on each page, and there were no lines. I kept it back.

“I do need a diary, but I need it for taking down class notes. I wouldn’t want to use such a good diary for that!”

“Oh you want one for taking notes? I have just the thing, then!”

I came away holding a thick, black spiral bound book. After reaching home, I placed it over the cupboard. And I just stared at it. What would I do with this?

The pages had such a smooth texture. There was absolutely nothing written inside. No days, or months, or quotations, or fancy designs. Just thin lines. To add to it, there were colour coded tabs running along the sides. It was so beautiful.

It was not meant to be filled with random notes that I wouldn’t bother to look at. It was not supposed to be sold to the scrap dealer once the pages were filled. It was meant to be preserved.

I was scared to open it. To write on it. What if I made a mistake? I had three such books, lying unused, inside the cup board, for the exact same reason!

After spending hours wondering what to do, I told myself, “That’s enough! It is just a bunch of pages. Break out of it!”

I picked up my black pen, and started writing. I didn’t bother about the subject. I wanted to just write. To feel the pen slide on the paper, for no reason. I wrote random sentences. The more I wrote, the more I wanted to write. It seemed as if water was trying to burst through a small hole in a dam.

What I wrote, didn’t matter. But the sight of the beautiful paper, being written on, thrilled me!

After several minutes of writing, I forced myself to stop.

I had filled a few pages with words, I would not even bother to read again. But it looked beautiful!

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Musings

Injecting sunshine?


Three hectic months. Two people*. One project.**

We stumbled, fumbled, messed up, and from being way behind schedule, made a last minute dash towards the finish line. The hangover from our project took a month to get over, and our hard work paid off in the form of a third place award for 2D animation.

Things were beginning to return to normal – I was catching up on my assignments, and my team member picked up a job.

But that’s when it all really started.

A shooting pain went down the left side of my lower back. It must have been a sprain I picked up while running to catch a bus last winter. It had troubled me a lot at the time, but had disappeared in the summer. I went out for a walk, and the pain subsided. I began walking regularly, expecting that it would heal over time.

Then, on a cold December morning, the pain increased exponentially. I mustered up courage to take a walk with my mother. Holding on to her shoulder, I limped at a snail’s pace. Ten minutes later, she said, “That’s enough – we’re going to the doctor”.

Four days, three blood tests, two X-rays, one diagnosis. Blood sugar – normal. Blood count – normal. Bones, muscles – no issues detected. Vitamin D3 – negligible!

The doctor wasn’t amused. Heavy dosage of vitamin supplements daily, extra heavy dosage weekly, and rather painful injections monthly. And of course, a long lecture on the importance of Vitamin D3, and sunshine. Once word got out, in came a flurry of forwarded emails, and anecdotes about lots of people suffering from the same condition.

‘Oh! These days everyone seems to having that. You must spend time outdoors, you know.’

‘My colleague fell down and broke her bone’

‘I wanted to change my work timings so that I could spend some time outdoors. My boss wasn’t happy. He told me to go get injections. His wife is doing that’

The television and newspaper joined the party, and began informing me about it too.

I learnt a lot… The deficiency of this vitamin is apparently linked to obesity, diabetes, and even cancer. It also inhibits the body from fixing itself. Perhaps that was the reason I never recovered properly from injuries. Although Vitamin supplements are available, the one produced naturally is the best.

Sunlight is required to assimilate Vitamin D. And so it is dubbed the ‘sunshine vitamin’. As it turns out, the phrase has a figurative meaning too. Being exposed to the sun also affects our mood.

Living in the tropical region, I always wondered why sunny days were ‘happy’, and the month of May was considered ‘merry’. Personally, I prefer a cloudy day. But science has confirmed that sunshine makes us happy, and a lack of it, gloomy and irritable.

I began spending more time in the local park. One day, after walking, I stepped off the jogging track, and took off my shoes. The damp grass tickled my feet, and invited me to stay a little longer. I obliged by lingering on… I lay down on my back and looked up at the sky, and I wondered, when was the last time I felt this good…

Our lifestyles have changed drastically over the past few decades. And it is leading to an increasingly large number of problems. We live in an artificially created environment, barely move our limbs, and are married to gadgets.

We are not computers, we were created by nature. That is how we have survived for so long on this planet, and no matter how far science progresses, we cannot create a sun, and definitely cannot inject sunshine.

* * *

* The People : my partner-in-crime – together, we’re guilty of creating a monster! He’s recently started blogging.

**The Project : I’d like to think the project was responsible for several of my problems, but it probably just aggravated something that has existed for years. I’ll explain all about it in the next post!

Related Post – Interview In A Dungeon

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Musings

Interview In A Dungeon


A few weeks back, I went for an interview conducted by a super secret unidentified company. Since I am still studying, and will probably want a job soon, I shall refrain from mentioning the name or location of the company.

The interview was short – just a few questions like why I would want to work there, and whether I knew what kind of work was being done. The rest of the day was spent in giving the ‘test’ – and it was really enjoyable. I was given a storyboard, character and background graphics and voice over. I had to string them together into an animated clip.

The office was located in an obscure location – locating it was an adventure by itself. And when I entered it, I took an instant dislike to it. Although it looked large from the outside, it seemed to lack space inside. The windows were covered with black paper and there were millions of lights on the roof. This got me thinking, why were the windows constructed at all, if they had to be covered up. And what’s the point of covering up natural light, and installing so many artificial lights?

But despite my initial dislike, I loved the work that they did. As I mentioned earlier, I actually enjoyed what was supposed to be a test!

I requested a lunch break, and was readily given one. There was a small grocery shop just next to the office and I enquired whether there was any place where I could get a decent meal. The lady said, well, if you have some packed lunch, you can eat with me… otherwise, there isn’t any such place around here. I accepted her offer of company and bought whatever she could offer by way of food. I casually enquired about the company and her opinion of the people who worked there. Satisfied with her response, and the ‘meal’ of juice and cake, I resumed my test.

My interviewer shared her concerns regarding the fact that I lived far off and the working hours were not fixed. But I had a much bigger concern.

Working for long hours in an environment that provides absolutely no natural light is disastrous. After personally experiencing consequences of working in such an environment for just three months, I can testify that the employees’ health will deteriorate without them even knowing about it.*

I understand that this is the case practically everywhere on the planet, and for some technical reasons, shutting out real light and living in an artificially created environment is justified. But an organisation should allow (or maybe force) employees to leave the office premises and enjoy some fresh air and good old sunshine.

If the lovely lady and gentleman who interviewed me are reading this, I hope you will still welcome me to your office, should I come begging for a job (I love the work!). But I also hope you will consider that the poor work environment is perhaps the reason why you have such a high turnover in the first place.

Healthy employees = Happy employees = Low turnover + Better Output

* * *

* I will leave the explanation for another post!

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Musings

The Constant Migrant


The city has embraced migrants for centuries, and become home to a huge variety of people. Not many can claim to belong to Delhi, yet, anyone who comes here, belongs to it. People who live here are known for their generosity. They welcome visitors with wide-open arms. This is perhaps the reason why the city has come to be known as ‘dill walon ka sheher‘*. It has embraced different cultures and has a long history – which is evident from the staggering number of monuments.

Over the recent past, its image has been that of an unsafe city. I believe this is because non-residents have taken the lovely people here for granted. But even so, it is a city that I call home. Despite its shortcomings, I love it. If I were told to move out of Delhi and live elsewhere, I would be devastated. And therein lies the problem.

For all my attachment to this city, deep down inside, a small part of me feels like I am a misfit. I need the typical South Indian cuisine, the tunes of Carnatic classical music, the sights and sounds of the intricately decorated temples. Perhaps its partly genetic, partly because its a novelty here, and partly because I do not know much about it. But mainly, because it forms a part of my own identity.

Even though I have grown up in Delhi, my childhood was dominated by stories about life in the villages. Anecdotes about hundreds of family members, whom I have never met, and probably will never know either. It used to be a small world. Everyone knew everyone else. There were so many traditions and customs that I struggled to explain to my north Indian peers. I hardly understood the local culture, and they refused to accept ours. Our native traditions and customs were more numerous and filled with elaborate explanations. I found those much more interesting than any of the local folklore. To be honest, I felt superior, and pitied my companions who did not understand.

But time and circumstances changed many things. The city of Delhi was evolving, and was beginning to accept people from all parts of the country. I began feeling alienated around family members. I felt like I didn’t belong there any more. I made Delhi my home.

The villages have nothing that belongs to us any more. The ancestral houses were either usurped or sold – I never set foot anywhere near them. We all have moved on to our own lives. But there are some traditions that we have held on to. The kolam** at the doorstep, the offering of food to deities, the keen interest in Classical music and art, the spirituality and sanctity maintained on festive occasions.

Indian philosophy demands that we move ahead – not get caught up in sentiments. And I believe I am one of the millions of migrants who belong to Delhi. But one day I hope to visit the ancestral village – to understand where my roots were – and perhaps quell the thirst for knowing myself.

* * *

*dill walon ka sheher – loosely translates to ‘the city that belongs to large-hearted people’
** kolam –  form of painting that is drawn using rice / white stone powder (full wiki article)

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Musings Stories

Letting go


When I was in school, there was a dance teacher who had once asked us to submit an assignment. She had asked us to find out about the various dance forms of India and prepare a scrapbook with pictures and information that we had collected.

I was just going to enter middle school, and this was a time when we did not have such great access to the internet. Broadband was many years away. We did not even have a dial up connection.

What we did have was a very good newspaper which focussed more on culture and art, rather than on gossip and glamour. My aunt pitched in and provided us with glossy brochures of cultural programmes.

My mother and I set about cutting sheets of cartridge paper and folded them to form the book. We punched holes at the joints and tied a shiny brown ribbon into a bow to hold the book. We pasted the photographs from the newspapers and brochures and outlined the pictures with colour.

I had a very bad handwriting at that time. So with colourful felt pens my mother wrote little descriptions of each art form. The pages were numbered, and we even made an index. Every few pages, my mother made little abstract designs to fill in the blank spaces.

Now that I think about it, my mother made the whole thing! And I think she had a great time too.

When it was done, I submitted it to our dance teacher. She was impressed.

After assigning grades to all the students’ assignments, she returned them. She said never in her life had she ever given a student an A1. But she said she loved my assignment, and she wanted to show it to other students. She said she wouldn’t give it back to me.

I was quite upset. I felt it was my assignment. I should keep it with myself. Every week I would ask her for the scrapbook. And she would refuse to give it. She showed it to students of all the classses she took.

A few friends from another class one day came and told me that they had seen my assignment, and that they loved it too. It made me feel proud. But it made me feel even more possessive about it.

Seeing how much I wanted it back, at the end of the year, our dance teacher finally relented to my request and returned it to me.

On the cover page, with a shiny brown glitter pen, she had written A1. I felt very happy.

But the happiness didn’t last long. After a few months, I began feeling guilty. That scrapbook was lying idle in the house. No one would see it. My mother told me I should have let it remain in the school. She even suggested that I return it to her. She said after a few years, it will end up going to the kabaadiwala *. I didn’t want that. I told her I would keep it with me. But in my heart, I wished I had let it remain with my teacher. I couldn’t bring myself to return it to her. My pride didn’t allow me to.

And so, even to this day, it is lying in my cupboard, with some other memorabilia from school. A reminder of a very important lesson. It is important to let go. Ultimately, time will wither away all attachments.

***

* kabaadiwala : Scrap dealer. Old newspapers, magazines, and sometimes other used household items are sold to scrap dealers who in turn send it to be recycled

Update: I scanned and uploaded the pages of the scrapbook

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Musings

Relevance of Relations


Tomorrow some guests are visiting us. Well, they’re actually relatives who live in a land, far far away. I don’t remember having ever seen them, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again. But they’re in town, and have been kind enough to acknowledge our presence, and have decided to pay us a visit.

That’s all wonderful and exciting. But then it has also created a huge problem. The house has to be cleaned up. Every thing must be put in its rightful place.

Some are already stationed at their rightful place. And that is because no one ever considered it necessary to relocate them in the first place. But a huge blanket of dust envelopes them, and now that summers are here, it is time they were relieved of this burden.

There are several items which are out of place. They are easy enough to put back.

The tough part is in deciding what to do with the majority of items – the homeless ones. They have no place, yet they have been roaming around the house like vagabonds.

In the middle of this clean up operation, a small piece of paper stared at me. It had a list of names and numbers. Memories of an old age instantly popped up in my head. Many years ago, the words on the paper would have been a very important piece of information. People, with whom I had spent many months. We all cried and promised to keep in touch. We felt sad to leave the school where we had spent so many years, we were like a family.

But today, they are nothing more than words. Even though I could recall something about them, there was neither the slightest inclination of ever wanting to meet them, nor regret at not having kept in touch.

I tore the piece of paper. It had found its place – in the dustbin.

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Musings

A New Day


It’s been a rather noisy night. Huge flashes of lightning lit up the city in the middle of the night.

I step out to assess the damage. The verandah is littered with trash that the storm has decided to leave behind as a souvenir. I dodge the minefield to reach the railing and look outside.

Clear blue skies, and a cool breeze wish me a good morning. A pigeon flies towards the ground. Another one follows it. And soon many others enter the stage from all directions. Someone has just spread out a platter of seeds for them to feast upon.

I look at the trees, to see if there are any casualties. They are injured. They have been stripped off most of their leaves and there is a colourful carpet on the ground. But they stand proud and straight. They do not mind the shedding of leaves, after all, newer ones will grow. They have survived the night, and its time to savour their victory. The breeze is playing a gentle tune, and they are swaying to it.

Soon the city madness will resume, and last night’s events will be forgotten. But till then, I will stand here, in the middle of the mess, soak in the fresh air and watch nature celebrate spring.