In reverie..

The faint notes of an old bygone song, were borne by the light breeze into my room. A father’s desperation to spend as many precious golden hours with his daughter as he could, before he had to take leave of her, was singing by itself in those notes that reached me. The father would be leaving his beloved child soon, to pursue an important phase in his career, which was only a foresight to secure her future. The child bawled on.

It was late in the night, with a slight chill in the air. The kind that is the best to make you enter into a reverie, and I was trying to get the better of a book, that I had to return to its rightful owner as soon as I could. And as I sat there on the arm chair, in my room, listening to him sing, slowly my thoughts wandered away to what inexplicable creatures we are.

The weird nature of bondage and the harsh crudeness of loneliness have always been a thing of wonder to me. We are, as adults, but for some unfortunate few, quite capable of living our lives independently. But again, we are due to some unknown strength, known to crave for acceptance, and bondage, making ourselves dependent on those that we love. We are as free as our bonds are, and as caged as the strength of those bonds turns out to be. You might argue that, we are as free as our bonds are, and only the freer, as the strength of the bonds remain intact. I agree! This is but a side of looking at it. In that view, do we intentionally make ourselves the prisoner of our emotions?

Perhaps we do. And then again, perhaps not. We can only fathom so much as that the complex set of criss-crossing wiring in our cranium can wish to explain. But the psychological nature of that also has always been an enigma, hasn’t it? The mysterious working of the so-called heart - which should not be confused with the heart that in terms of science , has been well studied, and has the main function of pumping blood to all parts of the body - is all the more of a wonder to me. They say the heart pains, and it bleeds. They say, the heart rejoices. Well! Well!

It is no wonder that we are, is what our heart makes us. Tender, timid, strong, practical, hard, cold and so the list goes on in the hundred ways that we describe people. The same adjectives also apply to the heart of that person don’t they? During the process of growing up, and becoming cognizant of the various wonderful things around us, we slowly get entangled amidst the bonds that come our way, while we move hither and thither. And we love, and we hate. Hate, being a negative and undesirable emotion, has been proved by all the legends and epics behind us, to be a meeker competitor when compared to love. For love is that wonderful medicine that even the specialists in the medical profession have been unable to synthesize.

"The greatest science in the world; in heaven and on earth; is love."

Said Mother Teresa. Who else will know more about that beautiful jewel, than her, who devoted her life to spread her love to all she met.

For some priceless hours of staying with our loved ones, we are even ready to part them for a length of time. Strange are the ways that the heart makes us act. Stranger are the ways, how we all listen to that heart, while the pragmatic point always shows how that is quite unnecessary. The strangest is the fact that we are but humans with a mix of emotions, and thoughts, which we let our own people rule, and still remain happy about it.

The child had gone to a restful slumber, as the crying had stopped, but the notes kept wafting into my room, singing by itself the fantastic ways of Nature and the unknown!

The Tale of the Mole under the Sole

"You know, when I grow big, I'll go to Australia"
"Bah! When I grow big, I'll go to Antartica!"
"Silly gals, When I grow big I'll go to Bermuda Triangle"
And so we went on, when we were about 2 ft high, knitting dreams in the air, about far flung places, as though we were just talking about going to the Periyar street behind our house.

Then one day, while removing the shoes and socks for the computer science class, when the Preethi saw the mole that I have on the sole, she pulled me aside, with eyes as big as saucers. While I was wondering, if the reaction was due to the fact that she was accidentally in the vicinity of Varun, when he was removing his shoes & socks-that-were-rumoured-to-be-the-reason-for-computer-ma'ms-frequent-fainting-episodes, she was regarding me with something in the terms of a venerable expression. While I was searching for something to hit her head with, to get her out of the trance, and decided that James's shoes were not the right option, she opened her mouth at last to throw some light on the matter.
"Hey Aishu, you have a mole on your sole of your right foot. You know what that means?!!"
Must say, I never realized that a mole could actually 'mean' anything. But apparently it did to her.
"I don't know what it means. Err.. do you?"
"Hey.. u know.. that means 'payanam' (travel). You are really going to travel to a lot of places. Only very lucky few have a mole right in the center of the right foot. My god! What a luck!"
And so she went on until the computer science teacher at last told us, that she might ask us both to make a short trip to the principal's room if we didn't stop chattering right away. So much for traveling! :O

Well, somehow that thought registered itself in my brain, and whenever my eyes fell on the mole, my thoughts would wander among the monuments that Discovery channel would show. Sigh!!!
Little did I know, how true Preethi was. Travel I did.To far flung places, you ask.. oh sure!
College itself was a good six hours of bus travel from the place that I lived. Though this is common and many even travel longer and have tougher journeys, I'm just highlighting upon the fact, to stress on the effect of the mole. The journey though only of 6 hrs, made me change 4 buses and a van/car to get me to the house. As you can imagine, by the end of the journey, any beggars in the vicinity would look at me, as though welcoming me to join their gang. (The best part was that they wouldn't hound me for money.. Pheww!)
Ok.. let me not digress. After those dreary college days when I started working, I thought the mole's luck would take me away from the Tamil Nadu and I would get to work in other cities too. But no, I got a job in Chennai itself, and the only mole-effect was dreary bus journeys to the Siruseri. While in 2 hrs you can make a trip to Madurai from Karaikudi, I would be waiting for more than that time, sitting in a bus, looking at vehicles honking for no reason.

But the mole-effect didn't stop there. My toothy problems, had me going to the dentist, who for some god-forsaken reason, felt Perambur to be the best place to pratice. Sitting in a bus for more than 2 hrs, all to have a doctor tighten some nuts and bolts in your mouth in 10 mins, then ask you to come after 2 weeks, also reminding you not to eat anything solid, was really not my idea of travel! During all those longer bus journeys, Preethi's fateful prophecy kept rewinding in my head. Mole-ki-to-aisi-ki-taisi!!! $@%$#@($#!!

And then happened the fateful US trip very recently, after quite a bit of fate and luck played their parts. So when I thought, "Hmm..after all Preethi's prophecy ka kuch to hua" I was boarding a plane to Denver. Happy that in the end, the mole decided to do something true to it's dubious reputation, I was quite happily going about my way.

But looks like, the mole is not very happy to have obliged it's role. For now, another mole has sprang up on my left foot's sole. Though not as big as the other one, this one now seems to be more like those fresher kids who join work, right out of college. The kind you know, who are all eager to prove themselves.. and come and ask your permission even to go to restrooms? I know.. really amusing lot! But not this teeny-weeny mole, I tell you!

Next month again, I'm moving to West Chester, PA. I hope this small travel on my part will abate the pangs of this new mole, and I can at last stay there for while. By the way, do anyone of you know, how to prevent moles, especially on the soles?
(Quite rhyming eh? :P)

And I'm back!!

Whoa! I haven't been writing for ages! Hmm.. I need to do some justice to this space that dear own blogspot has allocated to me, thinking that I would scribble now and then, but what am I doing? Reading dready documents all day and your night, trying to exercise the top bean into a hit shape. Well, in any case, jolly old bean liked to be left alone, and I wanted to do some scribbling. So am back! :P

So amidst doubts of 'Tera Kya hoga re Aishu' I was flung into this far away land of Denver, sometime last month. I must tell that, when the weather outside is like -5 C, it is a very bad time to be caught by the worst form of cold. But it had already caught sight of me, and while I was sneezing the bejesus out of all and sundry, I had to travel to this land of 'Mile High city'. 34 hours of solid travel, in a trance like state, nose all clogged up, almost wheezing, sounding like a baby-elephant learning to bleat, I somehow reached this city. The best thing about the travel was that, I was able to watch 'Zabaan Sambhaalke' on the flight. Now this used to be the TV show that brought many a laughter with it, when I was in school. Those days of simple unadulterated laughter, the kind that is really rare now. Simple easy old days! Sigh! :)

Ah.. well, where was I? Oh.. yeah.. so now it has been more than a month here, and I've seen the snow, the rain, and sun too (thankfully). It is a quiet place, with rabbits and geese having a stroll on the roads as they like. I even saw a deer jolly well crossing the road in 2 long leaps, while my mouth was left hanging by itself. Err..By all this don't you guys go into any thoughts in the rein of "Iva entha vandalur zoo le irukka?" There are enough people around, and though the place is a far cry from the honks, loud whirring bikes, and other noises that keep company all the time in India, it has a peace about it, that quietens the soul. Take a peek.. go on!



Now does the peace part of my talk make sense? :) *Smiling benignly* I knew it is difficult to expect so much of the grey cells residing in the cranium without giving some of the tough work to the photoreceptors on the top of the head. Ah.. well, now that you got it, the most part of what I wanted to scribble here has been conveyed successfully.

While I go on, to enjoy a little more of the solitude of the place, you all have a jolly good time! Pip Pip!