When your heart breaks.. you have to just wait for time to heal it...... But when your soul breaks.. you need to go out in search for an answer........

There are good times and then there are bad times..... but why do bad time feel like they last forever and good times end even before your realize how you want to react or take it forward???

Balkuppe (Kushalnagar) is a Tibetan settlement about 75 Kms from Mysore…. Nice quiet sleepy town which wakes up to chants and prayers by the Buddhist monks. The ½ a day trip was exotic…….
Attended the Dasara celebrations at Mysore…… I think the management and the police there did a great job. Was organized well and despite such crowd the traffic was managed perfectly well… took us just 7 to 10 mins to get out of the parking lot and drive out……

Hampi defies the idea of what beauty ought to be. I am sure I want to go back to Hampi again.. and this time for at least a week….. it’s the best place to be inactive. Just go numb .. laze around, read and sleep… and yes, drink loads of tea and eat good food.

Reading Riot After Riot by M J Akbar

Lost & Found!!!!!!!!

They say the path way of heaven is paved with all the lost items of the world. And I think I just got lucky as I had access to it……. I found my long lost book today from this pathway in heaven………..
I meet Ellen at the apartment that she has made her home for a few months that she is in India for. Many have made this place their abode when they have come to Bangalore. I have spent many evenings here with a few good friends. We talk about books and then Ellen asks me who is my favourite Indian author… and like always … I have a story to tell….. I promptly tell her… “it has to be Pankaj Mishra….. for his book The Romantics” its one of the books that makes me love my life and when you read through this book… you realise that there are people like yourself… .aimless….. just living every moment to the fullest…. For whom life, success and achievements have far wider meaning then money, power & position. who spend their life not looking for anything.. nothing.. just living every moment.. reading… sitting…. Hanging around and passing by this world……. Just take in what you see.. what you experience….and understand that you and only you can be your best friend….
I tell Ellen.. The Romantics was one of my most prised possessions…. Jill had borrowed it from me and then it changed a few hands… girls from the hostel had read it and passed it around… .. it got lost somewhere between all this……. Then I see a stack of books…. I look through it… sad eyes…. With no hope in my heart to find The Romantics back… yet hoping against hope to see it there. And what……. It’s there…. My copy… I recognize it… it’s a little worn out…. The cover feels a little sticky…. But then this is The Romantics… my very own copy….. I love this book… if I had a bible… it would be this one. My face glows and my eyes twinkle….. I have opened it and read pages randomly form here and there… there is no way I can pick one favourite part of this book… it’s the whole of it that makes it enchanting… it feels like I am under its spell.
From the book:
“Her presence in Benares, in a tiny room on the roof, where she appeared to do nothing all day except read and listen to western classical music, was a mystery to me. I thought it had to do with some great sadness in her past. It was a large judgement to make on someone I dint know at all.”
“But it was a situation that seemed to have its own odd logic and momentum. I felt I had already surrendered to it. I was no longer in control. My nervousness had been replaced by a quiet excitement.”
“Even if I could describe it without being meretricious, I would still be false to my memory of the event, which matched at only a very crude level……”
“I asked her what she was doing in Benares. ‘passing through’, she had said, and the words had stayed with me. they had suggested a kind of perpetual journeying through the world, a savouring of life in a way I had no means of knowing, the life itself seeming – as it did in the pictures in Miss West’s room – unimaginably adventurous.”
“I tell myself ‘detachment is the key’ and then even a few more minutes of unbroken attention means so much to me! It has been such a joy first to see our proximity grow and then open an entire now fields of understanding, of affections and of ourselves as we are.”

I am looking for a real GOD. ( I )

I have been meaning to write this down for some time now. My mind has been full of “who is this God we keep talking about?” for a few weeks now..........................…. Where did this all really begin?? Is the question I would like to ask myself? I look back.. trace and think.. and rethink.
I went to Tirupati. It’s a wonderful place. The temple .. I can’t even recall the architecture there. I just remember rooms and rooms and rooms filled with people… waiting waiting and waiting for long long hours….and then you are standing right in the front.. only for a few seconds… hundreds of Diyas lit….the lord glowing in its light… you smell divinity., you feel divinity and you see it and sense it. Your heart fills with something…. I can’t really describe it. It’s a nice light flying free feeling.. all in just a few seconds… and you are pushed pushed pushed aside so that the thousands who are behind you experience that same divinity. (I am sure many experience it just entering or putting their foot on the Tirupati soil.)
Ok. So here was where it all started. Reached Tirumalia. Checked in. had a nice good Andhra dinner. Slept well and very comfortably. Woke up early and then… got out… tried to figure out where do you get your token for Darshan. Was guided from here to there and everywhere. After an hour of running around… finally finally figured out where Darshan tokens were being issued. You have to see the Q to believe it. Thousands standing, sleeping, eating…. All just waiting for the counter to issue tickets. The process is so slow. Stood there for about 30 mins…. And realised we hadn’t moved an inch. The guard tells us.. we have very little chances of getting a token for darshan even if the Q ever moved. We are way behind. Only 2000 tokens are issued. We will never get to it. Counter closes at 9.00 am. What do we do? We have to catch a train at night. Someone suggests we can go up to Tirupati and may be get some special darshan tickets (you need to pay only a few hundreds they tell us. Few hundreds?? Why should I even have to pay in the first place? Anyway I can’t afford to get into my thinking and questing mode at this time…… but my mind does not listen and it has begun WHY?).
Reach Tirupati. Find an information counter. Information counter gurus advice us to stand in the Q for special darshan tickets... (cost only a few hundred rupees more then the regular 50 rupee token...they say .. its easier, quicker and much simpler). Says counter opens only at 8.00 am. We find where we need to be. Its 8.00 am. Counter isn’t open. Its 8.30 am counter still not open. Its 9.00 am counter still not open. No one is there any more at the information counter to help you. I believe the management has just announced that due to heavy traffic of visitors “No tokens will be issued for today’s darshan.”. The counter for NRIs and anyone who makes a large donation via cheque to the temple is open. You can get through this one. Make a donation to the temple and get a token for Darshan. Dad is more than eager to do this. I stand there……look at the long long Q for free Drashan. People…. Who have come with their little children standing here….. they are the ones who need GOD the most to help them and are willing to stand for look hours just for one glimpse of him. To show him their faith. And then there are a few like us. Willing to make things easy. Pay and get away. Get what we want. We have it and we use it, and why not. I dint allow dad to make a donation just to get Drashan tokens. Told him that we needed to give that money to a friend who has started an organization for under-served children.
Now .. what is it? Why is there a difference in a place of worship?? Why can’t we all be one at least here?? I totally understand the economic differences…. I mean how else would this world of we humans work?? We thrive on this economic difference. So … what is god doing? The management? Gods all powerful right! He knows what’s right and what’s wrong. And yet he has allowed “us” to do this. How could he? Then where is he here? Cant he see the kind of difference that we make.. even in his place? Why does he not intervene? Who has made this crap management? Who has allowed them to make a difference in places of worship? Should we not have all been treated just the same? What makes an NRIs faith more important than a farmer’s who has just lost his land or is hoping to be able to pay back his loan on time? Why should I have to pay to worship? Or rather why is it that who can pay get special privileges? What’s happening? Why does money make the world go around?
I always land up with so many questions. My last trip to tirupati…. Has left my mind full of questions on God and the management who run these places. I am sure I will just think think think about it and then this though will die out. We have allowed them to do this and therefore I guess we should never now sit and find faults. But why can’t I stand up against this system? I am never going to pay to get to see God or to get into a temple. I am always going to go the free way….even if it means standing for hours. I won’t add to this whole money business. What I give is something personal…… I won’t allow management to tell me or make it compulsory for me to pay. I won’t allow them to do this to me …….

Mom left today….. feels weird…lonely and empty when people leave. I wonder why we get used o them so soon and so quickly…….??? How can we allow people to take a piece of us away when they go???

I am looking for a real GOD.

I have been wondering on what’s the difference between GOD and Human beings???

He is the creator. Hhmmm and then when he is the creator and has that power to make things.. why does he make people different in mental and physical abilities (I don’t evebn count economic here.. economic ability is all manmade)??? A man is always striving to make things similar and one .. or of the same quality(be it good quality, mixed or bad)?? Logic is logic right!! If it applies to making a health drink .. then the same thing applies to making cream and the same to making biscuits or a piece or art or a person…..
He is powerful… oh…. I see… and so is a rich guy. If you are rich .. you are powerful.
He has control over the world….. huh!!! And so does a politician or again someone who has money ……have the power and control.
He will ensure that you are punished for all your wrong doings…. .. aree.. if he can’t forgive and forget then what’s the BIG deal between him and me?
He has the power and yet he can’t make things equal… he likes to have everyone at different levels so that we can go to him.. Plead and ask him.. Praise him when we get what we wanted… appreciate him for what we have….. then what’s the difference between him and a man?? Men are like that….. we want people to be thankful, we want o create differences so that the poor look up to the rich, so that the rich hold the power, so that we can do something good for someone who is challenged mentally, physically or economically and feel good………
Who is he? What is he? Why do I see similarities between him and a Man?? Why?? Why can’t he be a real real GOD?? Equal, even and fair???

Feels good!!!

Mom was here with me at school all of yesterday. She really liked being here. Says that she feels happy that I have put the last 4 years of my life to good use and spent it with wonderful people.

Currently reading V S Naipaul’s – An Area of Darkness

Looks like I have been complaining off late....... ha ha ha ha ha... can't beleive it!!!!

Running thoughts and my problem with me being honest and passionate senselessly

Sometimes I can’t understand why and how I am so passionate or honest about certain things that I do or say. It’s not really something to be totally proud of. It can get one in trouble and many times you may not land up with too many friends … actually many times you can really lose friends if you get too honest. It’s like when people say anything too sweet can be dangerous… I guess that same logic would apply here then that applies o “anything sweeter than it ought to be can be injurious”.
I think I am in this weird mode right now………. Where I mumble random things that try running through my mind all at the same time… many things that cross each other and therefore does not allow me to focus on one real issue. So after sometime I lose track of what I was following and jump into the next thing.
There are a number of things I would like to do or be involved with…. But then I get so involved and dedicated and attached to the first thing that I can’t move on…. Can’t take the next step.. because that would mean leaving the one I am on behind…… it’s all mixed up … weird logic.
Lots more to add to this one. Will may be continue when my mind is a little more stable.

What the hell do we mean when we cry out loud "I need my sapce!!"????

I think its better when I don’t think. Because when I don’t think… I am just simply Happy.. flying around.. doing my work… I don’t give a damn… I just do what needs to be done…….. but the moment I get to this Damn “thinking” mode I seem to get confused. I seem to lose myself rather then find myself. I have been feeling a little weird. Am I weird? Or like Kanchi says it’s a problem that most of us in this generation are facing…. Our parents never felt the need for freedom or they never had this feeling of wanting to break free(I have confirmed on this with my mom, and I think Kanchi has with her’s)….

The less people interfere with us.. the more freedom we have .. the more freedom we have the more space we keep asking for. We are living alone….. holiday alone and still scream out load for the need of Space. Are we insane? Am I insane? What is this? Is there really anything like space? Does it really exist??

But hey .. I need to confess… staying alone can get quite addictive. Its like meditating…… you are always one with yourself and you don’t want anyone to break that peace. Strange?