One Art - Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant 
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied.  It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Do Not Fall in Love with People like ME

A poem, I saw recently:

DO NOT FALL IN LOVE WITH PEOPLE LIKE ME

Do not fall in love
With people like me.
people like me
will love you so hard
that you turn into stone
into a statue where people
come to marvel at how long
it must have taken to carve
that faraway look into your eyes


Do not fall in love with people like me
we will take you to
museums and parks
and monuments
and kiss you in every beautiful
place so that you can
never go back to them
without tasting us
like blood in your mouth

Do not come any closer.
people like me
are bombs
when our time is up
we will splatter loss
all over your walls
in angry colors
that make you wish
your doorway never
learned our name

do not fall in love
with people like me.
with the lonely ones
we will forget our own names
if it means learning yours
we will make you think
hurricanes are gentle
that pain is a gift
you will get lost
in the desperation
in the longing for something
that is always reaching
but never able to hold

do not fall in love
with people like me.
we will destroy your
apartment
we will throw apologies at you
that shatter on the floor
and cut your feet

we will never learn
how to be soft

we will leave.
we always do.

That Day

I sat there stunned, reading and re-reading the lines, refusing to believe. I got up, took a walk around the apartment, drank a little water, strolled around a little, giving myself time to think, to let it sink in. I went back to the laptop and read the lines again; they were still the same.  She was still as dead still as far away as she had been all these years. Only, now I knew that she did not willingly end it, she was forced to come to an end. It sounds odd when I write it here, but in my head these words sounded just about right. For 15 years I had thought that my mother was the biggest coward, that she couldn’t face the world and she voluntarily ended her life. For 15 years I blamed her for my shattered dream of wanting to meet her and live with her after I was an adult. I blamed her for not waiting long enough to meet us, know us spend time with us. 

Fourteen years ago, one September day, my grand parents came to my school to pick me up. “Death of a family member” read the letter they submitted to the school principal. All the way home I kept thinking to myself, has my dog died, did they find out about the boy friend, did they find something in my room, shit I am in trouble. I had no idea what I was heading home for. And my imagination kept getting the better of me. I got back home, kept my school bag in the room and came to sit with my grand ma in the living room. My grand ma had tears in her eyes and my grand father said in the most somber tone I had ever hear him speak in “Alka is dead. You mother is no more, Harnal just called to tell us. The funeral is today” I sat there stunned. Trying to take in the fact that the mother I barely knew, who had always been a mystery, the threat to our family was gone. I tried hard to digest this fact. I remember feeling indifferent, numb. We, my sister and me, changed into black clothes and we all got into the car and left for my Mama’s house. I remember the drive as if it was yesterday, I remember sitting behind my grand dad in the car, next to my grand ma staring out of the window and thinking to myself the whole way there that I will not cry. We reached my Mama’s house, and were met at the gate by my maternal grand dad and my younger Mama. They both looked like they had aged over night.  We went in and there she was. The most horrifying sight of my life, eyes open, mouth open, tongue slightly out and blue, she was blue and so cold. I cried. I cried like I had never cried in my life. My resolve to not shed a tear evaporated at the sight of her. Never in all my naïve 14 years had I thought that I would see the day my mother lay on a floor surrounded by ice, and as cold as the ice. My Nani was inconsolable, my Mami’s were howling. There were so many tears that day. My father stood stoic, not showing a single emotion. I was feeling suffocated. They took her away, eventually to the cremation ground. No sophisticated electrical cremation for my mother, we burned her. In front of my eyes, they put my mother on a funeral pyre and set fire to it. I cried some more, a lot more. We tore a grass sheaf in two and threw the pieces over our shoulders in different directions. Tradition they said, to give peace to her soul. To this day I remember tearing that grass, thinking what peace. On trembling legs I walked to the car with my sister, holding on to her hand. I had no idea how she was feeling. Inside me there was a rage, an anger with the world, with my mother, with her parents for letting her die, and with myself for feeling frustrated about the fact that I would never see her again. It had taken me years to come to terms with the fact that she was gone. That I would never see her again, that there was no running away to her at the age of 18. I regretted the fact that I never insisted on seeing her. Never pestered my Dad for wanting to meet her. It is a regret I live with till today. More than the regret, I carried with me anger at her for giving up and leaving us. I for all these years had felt betrayed by her, until yesterday when I read that post. One of my mother’s closest friends was one Ambika Pillai. She was there at the funeral she had given me a card saying if you ever want to talk to me. I kept that card with me for years. Something always held me back I suppose I didn’t want to know why my mother might have killed her self. It was hard enough accepting her early demise; I did not want to know the reason. I think I always felt that if I ever got to know I would not be able to deal with it. I used to give my depression an excuse with my mother. So, I never called Ambika. 

Recently however I started following her Facebook page. Last night, there was a post on the page: Waking Up Dead. The headline intrigued me, I started reading and mid way almost gave up as I realized it was about her father, when suddenly a name jumped up at me: Alka. She was writing about my mother. And as I read the lines, I sat there stunned. All these years I had thought that my mother had killed herself, committed suicide by ingesting cyanide. It fit the image created by my grandparents. And suddenly last night my entire world had turned upside down. There it was in black and white. Murder. Death by asphyxiation. Someone had killed my mother, in cold blood. Ambika had an idea who, and by the sound of it, my family knew as well. And still the case was closed. For fifteen years I was led to believe that my mom had committed suicide, the ultimate act of cowardice. And here was Ambika writing about how it was murder. I am still in shock. I no longer know what to think what to believe. I thank providence for whatever instinct it was that led me to open that post and continue reading it. I thought about it, long and hard, did not sleep the whole night. I consulted my friend, and I thought some more. Finally I gathered the courage to write to Ambika. By some stroke of fate, she responded, asking me to take an appointment at the salon. I introduced myself properly, I am Alka’s daughter. She responded immediately, “OMG sweetie please call me. Sakshi I’d love to hear from you, my love”. And with trembling hands I dialed her number. I am meeting her tomorrow after work. I don’t know what I am going say, how I will feel.

A Party

There are times when you wonder if the person that you are is worth tour own attention. It generally hits you the most in the comanybof people. Whether it is people you know or you don't...  

Is It...?

“The world is too big for love to be real. There are too many people in the world to ever know, beyond everything, that you are with the right person. That your heart is as swollen as it can be. Think of all the people in China. It is unlikely anyone will ever meet all of them. How can we know for certain, that trapped inside a foreign language and thumping in a foreign heart there isn’t a love that is meant for us. The infinite possibility of existence, its limitless potential, is the proof that we need that love is nothing more than an imagination, a human folly, friendship swollen with self-importance, a final retreat from the storm of possibility. The love of our life could so easily have been someone else. It is random and accidental, haphazard and unsystematic. That which we feel for one person, clinging on to the delusion of destiny, could so easily be felt for a million people should the timing and the meetings and the mutual readiness have coalesced at some other time in some other place. Should someone else have accepted us or rejected us then everything would have been different. And once we know this, we know that all love is a lie. Not honesty but deception. Not heroism but cowardice. An unspoken agreement of mutual consolidation and compromise, a shield from possibility and a bed in which to sleep, nothing more than that. But I do still miss her.” 

 - Daniel Kitson

Facebook Funnies

Occasionally people post some absolutely HILARIOUS shit on Facebook. This was one of the funniest things I have ever read on there!

After I retired, my wife insisted that I accompany her on her trips to Walmart. Unfortunately, like most men, I found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out. Equally unfortunate, my wife is like most women - she loves to browse.

Yesterday my dear wife received the following letter from the local Walmart

Dear Mrs. Woolf,

Over the past six months, your husband has caused quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and have been forced to ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against your husband, Mr. Woolf, are listed below and are "documented by our video surveillance cameras":

1. June 15: He took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in other people's carts when they weren't looking.

2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-
minute intervals.

3. July 7: He made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the
women's restroom.

4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official
voice, 'Code 3 in Housewares. Get on it right away'. This caused the
employee to leave her assigned station and receive a reprimand from her Supervisor that in turn resulted in management getting involved causing management to lose time and costing the company money.

5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to reserve a bag of
chips.

6. August 14: Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.

7. August 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told the
children shoppers they could come in if they would bring pillows and
blankets from the bedding department - to which twenty children
obliged.

8. August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began
crying and screamed, 'Why can't you people just leave me alone?'
Emergency Medics were called.

9. September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.

10. September 10: While handling guns in the Sports department, he
asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.

11. October 3: Darted around the Store suspiciously while loudly
humming the ' Mission Impossible' theme.

12. October 6: In the auto department, he practiced his 'Madonna look' by using different sizes of funnels.

13. October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed
through, yelled 'PICK ME! PICK ME!'

14. October 22: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed the fetal position and screamed 'OH NO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!

15. Took a box of condoms to the checkout clerk and asked where the fitting room was.

And last, but not least:

16. October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited
awhile, and then yelled very loudly, 'Hey! There's no toilet paper in
here.' One of the Staff passed out.




And If this gentleman did even HALF the things listed here, I am VERY EXTREMELY impressed with him!!!

A Bogus Poem

This is absurd. I hope you will agree.
Hatred makes more sense than love,
as we often hissed, over polite conversations
in deserted elegant restaurants.
Where the waiters spoke only in French
and the cook was profoundly bored
and mixed the poems we wrote on napkins
into the soup that was served.

Chained by strands of acidic mist,
and the abuse of the mute and the music of the deaf
and the beatings of the paralyzed.
We look at each other
savouring the elegant hatred
invading our beings

For now it makes sense,
just like snow in the summer,
which I have always loved
And so have you,
when that was what we believed
was the real truth.

Though you have now thought about reading a book
in the middle of a deserted field
with the sun beating down in angry frustration
and the boundaries marked

by a fence made of the corpses of dreams
stacked beautifully in a nice clean line,
while I watched, sitting under the shade of that lone hungry tree

Why, the book was empty after all
The pages blank, the ink having fled
in utter misery, for you refused to read the words
the way they wished, but instead,
Complained that the Pizza delivery boy
was late. But then he arrived
at that remote meadow
in a spotless white uniform and refused to accept cash,
but instead, went away with a dead dream in his pocket
which he said was what he always wanted.

I wonder if we might examine this pizza
and see what parts belong to you and to you and to you

This slice, for sure, does not belong to me.
You must have it all.
I shall settle for the empty book
and read the invisible footnotes; they make sense
and do not lecture to me
about how I should have lived life
and what the real truth was
and so on and on and on.

- Vasudev Murthy

Dwarven Song About Old Wealth

 Haven't posted in a while, but this song from The Hobbit has been playing on my mind for a while. Love it.

Misty Mountains

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.
The dwarves of yore made mightly spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sward.
On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.
Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeouns deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.

Goblets they carved there for themselves
And harps of gold; where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.
The pines were roaring on the height,
(The pines were roaring on the height)
The winds were moaning in the night,
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
(The fire was red, it flaming spread)
The trees like torches blazed with light.
The bells were ringing in the dale
(The bells were ringing in the dale)
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
(The dragon's ire more fierce than fire)
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
(The mountain smoked beneath the moon)
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying fall
(They fled their hall to dying fall)
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!

The pines were roaring on the height,
(The pines were roaring on the height)
The winds were moaning in the night,
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
(The fire was red, it flaming spread)
The trees like torches blazed with light.
The bells were ringing in the dale
(The bells were ringing in the dale)
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
(The dragon's ire more fierce than fire)
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

Goodbyes, Accolades, Teams... A Wonderful Year

Dear Team,

I am sure this mail is a little bit of a surprise for you all! But what to do, I didn't get a chance to say good bye properly when I was leaving (in November). Meeting you all yesterday made me realize that there is some stuff that I do need to say to you all. :) You don't have to read through the entire mail (it's kinda long) just flip to your part!

Torque was my first break in the PR world, and frankly I did not expect to get the job when I had come for the interview. However, I did! (surprise surprise!!) Little did I know back then what a tough job it will be. PR was not at all as glamorous as I had envisioned it to be! At least Torque wasn't! ;) However, eventually I did realize how lucky I had been to have had a chance to associate myself with such a fantastic organization and more than that such a fantastic team!

I want to start with Tanya ;) when I had joined I was supposed to replace her. Of course, she didn't leave (as we all know) and instead ended up replacing me eventually (I say this in the lightest manner possible!) Tanya's capacity to endure stress is phenomenal. She might not look it, but this girl is a powerhouse of charisma! A month into the job I understood that there isn't much this girl is not capable of doing. Tanya, you're a freaking rockstar babe! If I could have even half the strength and endurance you have I would consider myself blessed.

Rashi, my dearest Rashi. If there is one word that comes to mind, perseverance is it. We've had some very heated arguments/discussions in the conference rooms. Intense for us, probably hilarious for the rest of the team. Rashi has teh kind of dogged persistence that very few people have. And rarely have I come across people quite as passionate about causes that they believe in as Rashi is. She might come across as some in who's mouth butter won't melt, but inside that exterior is a big mushy bear! With Rashi conversations were never boring and not a moment was spent talking nonsense.

Shradha has always been something of an enigma to me. One of the best poker faces I have come across on a woman. In the one year I worked at Torque I have never heard Shradha raise her voice for anything. Shraddha exudes a certain aura of patience that I have always admired and wanted to have. Usually silent, when she does speak, everyone listens! Some of the best times I have had at Torque have been the drives back home with Shraddha and Rajesh Sir... And that made me realize that out of office, she is REALLY talkative! And can I  please remind everyone of THE giggling incident when Sir walked in on a really stupid joke?! (Masterji, Pitaji ke patloon ek biyan chhoti kardo!)

Malvika was really scary when she first joined!!! (Don't hate me, girl, you were!) She has this smile that is both beautiful and scary! Shy at first, she comes across as an extremely seedha saadha girl. But once you get to know her you realize that that is just a mask to fool the world! Professionally I thought Malvika is extremely competent and very hard working, not to mention that she has a brain to go with the hard work. Personally, I thought she was quirky and funny! I mean who drinks WARM water in the middle of a scorching summer?! I clearly remember our Ladies Night sojourn to TC! And what happened to your car afterwards!!! She might come across as reserved and strict and all that, but trust me she isn't! Did I mention the crazy sense of humor and an ability to shut even very senior people up with her sharp sense of sarcasm. Keep this going, love. You are going to go places in life!

Sonali and Seep joined a little later, and while my interaction with them has been very little I can definitely say this that without them the team would be very extremely incomplete! Sonali is straightforward and simple, while Seep is the silent one. One thing I can say with complete confidence about Sonali, she gots guts! This one is so focused on her work that to defend it, she will take on ANYONE! And I generally put Seep and Shraddha as the silent ones of our family. Seep might never be heard, but she has a way of asserting her presence. She is also a very warm and caring person once you get to know her.

And let me not forget Unnayan. I have tried his patience and temper beyond belief! And still he has always encouraged me and motivated me to do well (albeit a little back-handedly!) A certain set of documents particularly tested his patience with me (we know what I am talking about). He has his weird moments, but they get overshadowed by his timely one-liners. I had a fantastic time working with him (on most days) I only wish I could have been better and measured up to his standards.

In the end I want to say this: Torque Communications and the people that make it ALL that it is will hold a very special place in my heart. I will always be ready to drop things to help out my people (and yes you all ARE my people). Stay cool, guys!

Loads of Love
S.

Life's Lessons

• Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
• When in doubt, just take the next small step.
• Life is too short – enjoy it..
• Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.
• Pay off your credit cards every month.
• You don't have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.
• Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
• Save for retirement starting with your first pay check.
• When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
• Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
• It's OK to let your children see you cry.
• Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
• If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it...
• Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
• Get rid of anything that isn't useful. Clutter weighs you down in many ways.
• Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
• It's never too late to be happy. But it’s all up to you and no one else.
• When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
• Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
• Over prepare, then go with the flow.
• Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
• The most important sex organ is the brain.
• No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
• Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'
• Always choose life.
• Forgive but don’t forget.
• What other people think of you is none of your business.
• Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
• However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
• Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does..
• Believe in miracles.
• Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
• Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.
• Your children get only one childhood.
• All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
• Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
• If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
• Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have not what you need.

The best is yet to come...

• No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
• Yield.
• Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."