Reflections of a restless eccentric

Foreword: I have been wanting to write this for two days now. Even as I landed in the airport after two days of barely any sleep, this article was on my mind. Even as I hit the bed and instantly fell into an exhausted sleep, fragments of sentences swirled around in my sleep addled head, phrases begging to be penned down, paragraphs beseeching me to bring them to life. But I still hadn't figured out how to write this diplomatically, without offending anyone, and to attempt that in a state such as I was would have been folly. Hence I waited, albeit impatiently, till I was in a more cognitive state. But today it strikes me, no matter how delicately I go about this, it might still end up being controversial, because that is the very nature of strong opinions-- there will always be someone who sees otherwise and thinks I'm wrong. Therefore, I will go ahead and make my points, with the disclaimer that I have no intention of offending anyone by writing this, but these are my very str...

One way to look at life is as a series of choices. At any given moment, you have at least two choices, out of which you pick one. Every moment involves many such choices, and in a day, we probably make millions of these. These choices multiply and result in what we call a life. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Make every choice carefully, and you shall have a blessed life. One of the things that nags me a lot these days is the "free will" in those choices. Although on paper all options exist, your mindset rules out quite a few. These might be different for each of us, but they certainly direct our decision making. I have watched myself make some choices that seem "predestined". I tell myself every time that next time will be different. I will choose what I want as opposed to what I should be doing. But nothing comes out of it. When presented with the same set of choices at some point in the future, I still do what my past self did and then curse myself in frustratio...

Another one of my paranoid lines of thought, while I adapt to being married:) I do not know how to handle these emotions. Dependence scares me; the feeling of missing someone is terrifying. I watch you leave, and it is a struggle to be nonchalant about it. But I persist, because if not nonchalance, what would be the alternative? An emotional outburst? I abhor the very thought of it. And yet, there is so much I want to say before you leave. Will every time be like this? I wonder. I do not want to feel any of this, much less acknowledge it or give it a voice. But denial is only a facade. It eventually peels away, exposing vulnerability. I am scared that love will turn into a chain that binds me all too tightly to you, wounding me every time you step away. I fear that I will get too used to your presence to live happily in your absence. The adrenaline of the lows and highs are too tumultuous for me to accept, it is equanimity that I relish and cherish. This person I am turning into, t...

You find me here, hunched down in front of my laptop, on my old bed in my old room. For two and  a half months I have missed this place. This bed. This room. The walls. Anything you name in this 2000 odd square feet, I will vouch that I have missed it sorely. Maybe even the road outside. The tress that rise tall from the ground and bow down gracefully from above, forming a cool canopy of calm shade. The sight of all those random people on morning walks and jogs. The myriad shops that bustle with customers in the evening. I don't think I would miss any of these individually. But combined, they form a part of my former habitat. They amalgamate beautifully into that feeling of home and warmth and love. After spending close to two decades in a place, it is anything but easy to suddenly dissociate from it. My roots are still here, and I feel homesick oftentimes. I will not apologize for that, nor will I justify by trying to delve into the whys of it. It is what it is. The journey to ...

On a Friday morning, I woke up at 5, got ready, gobbled breakfast and opened up my laptop. I had signed up for a music recital, which was scheduled for 6am. In keeping with modern times, this one was going to be a virtual hangout with a bunch of people singing on video conference.I had practised as much as I could, but that was still less compared to where I wanted to be. I steeled myself for this experience, because it was going to be humbling on many levels. Even so, I had no idea of what awaited me. To give the reader a little background, I had signed up for an online music class and have been learning for a few months now. One reason I hadn't signed up for an actual class was that I didn't want to face the reality of kids under 10 singing better than I ever could. This online class was a blessing: with a batch size of one, I only ever had to face my teacher, and I was content in this virtual bubble. The problem is this: I find it extremely difficult to manage the assig...

"In the nuances of music lie the answers to all the questions I cannot articulate." I see the world from many perspectives. But oftentimes, a song becomes my world. I feel its nuances more clearly than my own emotions. Its lyrics feel like a journal entry from a day long lost in the by lanes of time. Every rise and fall of a note feels like happiness and sorrow intermingling, inseparably and beautifully. I lose myself in it, till the only thing that exists is the song. I hear colors in those notes; brilliant vivid colors melding into one, and separating again, and then coalescing in a different pattern. When one note beautifully curves and falls into its lower companion, I see a sloping plateau meeting grassland. A crescendo brings to mind a glorious jagged mountain fearlessly rising into the sky, daring to meet it. Those tiny subtleties in a note, what is called gamaka in Indian music, feels like an intricate cloud pattern in the sky. A slow melody is reminiscent of the ...

The maid informs that us she would be on leave for 3 days. The cook says his replacement wouldn't be here for two more weeks. We already have a form to fill, photos to get printed, a ton of laundry, groceries to get, half a dozen bags to unpack. And now extra punches that life hands out. It certainly feels like a Monday morning. God knows I don't want to deal with any of this. On the contrary, I look at my personal life and see a myriad of things I actually want to do: that article I have been wanting to write for six months now, my music assignments that are fast piling up to the ceiling, many interesting avenues at work that I have pushed to "someday-when-I-am-free", so many subjects and topics I want to learn. When was the last time I read a book or learnt a song? What about that short story I keep promising myself to write? These are things that would bring me happiness and fulfillment and serenity, but there aren't enough hours in the day. I f...