Reflections of a restless eccentric

 It has been a while since I last wrote. I draw a deep breath of trepidation as I begin to write this. I am almost tempted to close it citing a random excuse, but this idea has been in my head for a week now, and I must write about it. A short while ago, my friend SM wrote in an article that her fitness goals caused her to become obsessed with reaching those goals, and took away from the joy and peace of actually working out. This idea remained in the back of my mind, and during the week I saw several examples of the same.(Baader-Meinhof anyone?) There was a customer care executive I was talking to, and he spoke at 2x the normal conversing speed. He also cut me off mid-question several times, already answering what he thought I would ask. It seemed to me that he was trying really hard to minimize the time he spent addressing my concern. The logical answer, was that he was incentivised on average time per call. Thus, his goal was to spend the least amount of time talking to people ...

Growing up, my mother was always scornful of sickness. The occasional time that she fell sick, she would never take time off either from work or from household chores. She would pretend that everything was normal, and work through her sickness. Sometimes for a day, or maybe even three. Similarly, when she once injured herself badly after her two wheeler fell on her leg, she came home and bandaged her leg and went back to normal. I have heard stories of how she worked till the very day I was born, and then returned to work in a couple of days. She looked at sickness as an enemy, and she would never let it declare victory over her. She was invincible. I saw her as an epitome of strength, and these incidents as testimony to that fact. In contrast to her, I was someone who struggled with sickness and pain. During my childhood, I would catch a fever every two weeks if not more often. Like every other person, I hated being sick. But because of the example she set for me, I also started feeli...

 My journey with music began as a toddler of 3 and a half years. My mother noticed that music soothed me when I was tempestuous and excited me when I was morose, and like several other South Indian mothers, immediately concluded that I should learn Carnatic Music, and the earlier the better. She sent me off to a teacher who was conveniently located next door, and who already taught a few people. The teacher looked at me in disbelief, as I hadn't even started kindergarten yet. She told my mother that I was too young, and that she should probably wait another year, but my mother was insistent. They finally came to the conclusion that I would be allowed to sit at the back of the class and listen, and that she would consider teaching me after a few months. So I went to class twice a week, and soon enough, I started singing along. My teacher changed her mind, and took me into her fold of students. I learnt this way for a year and a half, without understanding the grammar of a raga, with...

The fire alarm goes off. I wake up bleary-eyed thinking it is an ambulance, and then realize otherwise. I try not to panic, and quickly grab a mask and my phone. I head outside my apartment, and immediately see that the lift is not working. I turn to the fire stairs, but they are locked. I look down from the balcony, and I see everyone rushing out. Oddly, there are no neighbors on my floor. I call out, but no one hears me.  It is just me.  Alone. Trapped. On the eleventh floor. In a fire. This was one of my dreams last week. That morning, I had watched as BBMP officials clad in PPE suits sealed off our floor as our neighbors had tested positive. Makes sense. This is protocol.   I'm glad they're doing all this to prevent the spread.  I told myself this, even as I felt a little shaken. A little later that day, I heard voices on my floor again. I peeked from the peephole of my door. They were sealing off the lift and the stairway door with tape. I turned away quickly. A...

Women of genius are rare. Thus,  when we, driven by some mystic love, wish to enter upon some anti-natural path, when we give all  our thoughts to some work which estranges us from the humanity nearest us, we have to struggle  against women. The mother wants the love of her child above all things, even if it should make an  imbecile of him. The mistress also wishes to possess her lover, and would find it quite natural to  sacrifice the rarest genius in the world for an hour of love. The struggle almost always is unequal, for  women have the good side of it: it is in the name of life and nature that they try to bring us back. I found these words in a biography of Marie Curie. They were from a dairy entry of Pierre Curie and supposedly the reason he decided not to marry--he was of the opinion that marriage would be a distraction from his work. Ironically enough, he later found Marie, who was undoubtedly a woman of genius, and she like him, was deeply attach...

A short while ago, I was telling a friend that I was volunteering to be a mentor to students from my alma mater . Then, I told her, I think you'd make a great mentor. Did you think of applying? She immediately replied: I am in dire need of a mentor myself. How can I be one when this is the case? I agreed with the first part of her answer, but not the conclusion she drew from it. I too need a mentor. Does that mean I cannot be one to someone else? This persisted in my mind, bringing up parallels from a book called Maybe you should talk to someone, where a therapist talks about seeing a therapist herself and how that causes her patients to doubt her credibility. I also remembered my mother telling me that she could never go in to the clinic looking or sounding sick, because no patient wants to be treated by a sick doctor. Maybe this is a commonly held perception then, I thought.  I myself have been guilty of harbouring this notion. Whenever someone tells me to publish my writing, I ...

This has been lying in my drafts for months now. Finally chose to put it up! Vellichor*: The strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you’ll never have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured. One of the perks of buying an “old, handed-down” book! Nothing in these last several days made me feel this light at heart as this single flaky flower did! What is this flower? When did it land here? How did it land here? Did someone place it here on purpose, or did it inadvertently find its way? May be while sitting under the tree where it blooms? What used to be its fragrance? Its colour? What thoughts does it carry? And whose? Did it mean something to someone? If so, what? Does it hold any emotions? If yes, how inte...