Myra and Pooh the Philosopher

One morning, Myra awoke with her heart heavy with sadness and longing. In her dreams, she had traveled distant and beautiful lands, yet carrying her sadness in her heart. You see, Myra had such colorful and vivid dreams- she stood under the aurora dawn skies, she swam in aquamarine green and blue seas, she bungee jumped high cliffs, she met unique and interesting people in her dreams and walked with them to her wonderful adventures, but as soon as she woke up, sadness would come rushing in.

 One night, Myra walked in her dreams with Winnie the Pooh, the greatest philosopher of all times. Pooh Bear was the gentlest, wisest of all beings with a gruff but gentle bear voice and furry belly, which flopped softly as he walked.

“I know you are sad deep down, Myra”- Pooh said.

Myra drew her breath in- how did Pooh know? - “Am I that transparent, Pooh? “ she asked softly.

Pooh smiled –“ No, you are not, not to everyone. But I see it in your eyes. Sometimes even when your eyes shine with laughter, some of the grief within your heart spills through ever so slightly. What troubles you so, my dear?"

Myra felt her smile wane from her face and her eyes clouded over. She blinked ahead of her and took a deep breath. They walked on silently for a while, until Pooh gently reached out and took Myra’s hands in his warm bear paws, encouraging her to share her grief.

“I don’t know, Pooh. Angelo is gone. I miss laughing with him"- Myra spoke quietly.

Pooh replied- “ I know. You both brought much laughter in each other’s lives. It was wonderful to see you both so happy whenever you were together.”

“Then why did it end, Pooh?”-Myra asked. “I feel as if I didn’t work too hard to make our relationship work.”

Pooh turned to look at Myra-“Do you really believe that, Myra? Do you really think it could have been any other way than this?”

“Maybe…maybe if I had stayed with him longer, maybe if I talked to him more often, maybe if I hadn’t traveled so much, maybe if I loved him harder.”

As soon as Myra said the words, Myra stopped. She turned towards Pooh who was already looking at her with compassion in his eyes. “ He wasn’t the one, was he? It wouldn’t have been so hard,otherwise. ”- She said aloud.

“You are right. He wasn’t the one” –Pooh affirmed.

“I am afraid I’ll never find the one, Pooh”-Myra said quietly.

“Is that the reason you are worried, Myra? Tell me, why does one want to find ‘the one’? Is it about love? Is it about sex? Is it about companionship? Is it about security? Or is it about fulfilling norms of society which include marriage, partnership and parenthood?” Pooh asked.

“I am not sure”-Myra replied. “Maybe, it’s because nobody wants to be lonely. Sometimes, it feels as if people make compromises just so they have the security of someone always being by their side as they go through life. Maybe they are scared. Or maybe, I’m too cynical. Perhaps they do really find the person who they can’t live without for the rest of their lives.”

“And you?”-Pooh nudged. “Why do you think you need ‘the one’ –as you say?”

Myra took a deep breath and confessed- “I am scared, Pooh. I am unsure about the purpose of my life. Why do we exist? Is it only to mindlessly go through this life cycle and die eventually? What would be my contribution to life, as we know it. Is it to be a good daughter, a good sister, a good friend, a good employee, a good wife and eventually a good mother? Is it so that life can continue even after I die?  And if yes, then if I don’t meet ‘the one’ and don’t marry and don’t have children – would I really fail miserably in fulfilling my life’s purpose? Am I only an instrument of life’s aimless continuation on Earth? ”.

“Well...” Pooh began- “ you have asked me the most difficult question of all, Myra. As a philosopher, I too struggle to understand my purpose in life. Am I in this world only to gather honey from the forest during summer, and hibernate during winters, while creating little bears with another female of my species so that they go through the same mindless cycle over and over again? "

Myra looked at Pooh silently, waiting for him to continue.

“I think not, Myra. You know why?” Pooh said-“ Let me ask you a question. How many bears do you know who talk to humans and give them perspectives in philosophy?”

Myra shook her head- “Only you, Winnie the Pooh” – and smiled at her own world play.

“Exactly!” Pooh exclaimed- laughing together with Myra. “You see, Myra, as people go through their individual life cycles, each repeated through generations, each one brings with her or him a peculiar individual trait that has the capability of changing the perception of life as we know it. Some individuals bring big changes in perspectives like Nelson Mandela, Abe Lincoln, Margaret Thatcher, Maya Angelou etc and some small but equally important changes.  As for me, if I have cubs -I most likely will pass on my philosophical knowledge to my cubs and they will be more evolved philosophers than me.

And if I don’t have cubs, and chances are high this happens for you know, it’s SO hard to find a mama bear who will not snooze at my philosophy talk, and who doesn’t mind my floppy belly, well then I think I will have brought about an immense change in the way people perceive bears. Until now, people have mostly thought of bearkind as honey guzzlers who spend half a year snoring in caves! Maybe after me, they will also recognize us as intelligent philosophers!”

“Why, you do make an awful lot of sense, Pooh!” Myra remarked. “Maybe MY  purpose in life is to show everyone that as a woman, there is more to life than finding a partner and having babies!”

“Easy there, Kiddo! You are not alone, you know, there are plenty of women out there who are doing the same thing and asserting their individuality. Maybe your generation will have proved that a woman is much more than a carrier of life, she is life herself!” –Pooh laughed.

Myra laughed then, free flowing laughter that filled her being and made her feel much lighter than she had felt in a long time. She was life herself, indeed.

This time laughter stayed with her even after she  woke up from the dream.

Portraits

I love portraits. I believe, a good portrait is one which captures a person's soul in a frame.  Taking a portrait is not only about the right light, the right composition and the right camera setting , it's also about being connected to your subject where you can really see them for who they are at that moment and are able to capture their essence. To be able to do that, indeed , is magical.

"Keep your heart open to dreams. For as long?as there's a dream, there is hope, and as long?as there is hope, there is joy in living." Anonymous 

“The word "miss" is so wistful. As is the word "wistful," for that matter. They both have sighs embedded in them, that "iss" sound. Which also sounds like if.” - Joan Wickersham

“If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.” -― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The fish and the fisherman

The fisherman doesn't choose the fish , the fish chooses the fisherman. All her  life she rides the ocean's current, weightless, buoyant and playful. She circles the fisherman nimbly as he stand waist deep into the roaring ocean and swings his net with sinewy arms. His feet planted firmly on the sifting sand - his brow and arms and legs stinging ever so slightly with grain and salt. Patient , persuasive, powerful. 

She carefully observes the fisherman cast his net, feels the swoosh of the net as it hits the turbulent water , and watches it as its pulled back out into his calloused hands. When the time is right, she surrenders herself and lets herself be carried away by the swoosh and gasps as she feels the wonderful emptiness of air in her lungs. She hazily feels the calloused but warm hands on her as she fades away- but she dies  knowing what wind feels like. 

She chooses to know.

Bhikshu

Location:McLeodganj, Himachal Pradesh.

Sketches of a certain Miss J

A certain someone I know has been asking me to write short stories. And so based on popular demand (Oooh, That sentence made me feel so accomplished) - I hereby start a series of short character sketches of some of the most interesting people I have met in my life. Who knows- even you may be featured in one of these sometime :)

J Mausi-known to others as Miss J

J Mausi (Aunt)- known to others as Miss J- is a tiny, frail and slender woman, with huge, ever curious eyes peering from big horned rimmed glasses. She wears dresses with pretty floral patterns and comfortable flat sandals and all her clothes are tailor made with the design carefully chosen from the old leafy catalogs of a popular UK based magazine'Woman's Weekly' . The tailor who makes these dresses for Miss J has been doing that since about 35 years and sits in a corner shop in the main road of my small hometown. He is a rickety old man with thick glasses and knows that Miss J likes her dresses to be a modest below the knee length and comfortable during summers.

Apart from being my mom's colleague and friend, J Mausi was also my first kindergarten class teacher. She is the one who taught me my first alphabets and held my tiny hands and showed me the tricks of cursive writing. She also often smacked me on my head for the silly little mistakes I made. Miss J had a long wooden ruler in her classroom cupboard with which she would discipline the naughtiest miscreants in her class. She was also later treat the aforementioned miscreant with candy to make up for the disciplining. She once told me, that she would rather have loved to teach little unruly boys. 'Little boys are much more fun than peeved little girls who wailed at the sight of the wooden ruler'

Miss J never married in life and many rumors were whispered in the ears of girls during tiffin hours about her life. Some girls told me she used to be a nun and then she got bored of the nunnery and became a teacher. Some told me she suffered from blood cancer and went to Bombay every month to have all her blood drained out and then be replenished with fresh new blood. I always scoffed at these silly little stories. J Mausi, known to others as Miss J, was my mausi and I knew she went to Bombay to meet her brother and his nephews. I knew because before every trip to Goa (via Bombay) my mother and she would go out shopping to buy clothes and gifts for each of her nephews. With my hands in my waist, I would promptly tell off these rumor mongers. But I would go back home and ask my mother in hushed awe - "Is it true Mausi was a nun?" My mother would almost always silence me with a -"Never mind!'

J Mausi passed on to me her precious gift of love for books. She would borrow books of Enid Blyton such as 'Noddy' (Oh how I loved Noddy) and 'Malory Towers' as well as 'Hardy Boys' , 'Famous Five' and 'Nancy Drew' from the library in her name and bring them in a bundle on Sunday mornings after her church service , much to my utter squeals of delight. When I grew up to be a teenager, I would go to her room right next to the school dormitory and hunt for more books to read in her box full of books.She was the one who introduced me to the passionate world of old issues of Mills and Boon and Georgette Heyer and also, a tiny book of raunchy jokes.That tiny book found a second home below my mattress and would be taken out in the dark of the night to be read under the covers in torchlight, the same book which was later found and seized by my mother.

J Mausi's room was fascinating. It was tiny (everything about J Mausi was tiny, except her wooden ruler) with a single bed with a hanging mosquito net in the center, a cupboard , her box filled with books and a study table near the window. Next to the tiny book of 'Hail Mary' on her table, she had half a bottle of McDowell's whiskey. Scandalized, I would ask her if it was indeed whiskey- and she would laugh out aloud and tell me it was just water. I never really believed her. Now that I know - probably she was right, whiskey's are never transparent...are they?

How I loved J Mausi, known to others as Miss J!! As an adolescent extremely conscious of my changing body, I would find underwear shopping trips with my mom excruciating painful. One day she went along with us during one such trip and gasped in utmost horror when she saw what my ever practical mother would buy for me while I tried my best to find specks of dust in my shoe. 'Pristine white cotton with no elastic??!!' She exclaimed horrified- and loudly...and I was sure even the watchman at the store entrance could hear her- she proceeded to state in no uncertain terms exactly what she thought of my mom's choice- "Your mother is useless- I'll buy you the real deal ' and then oblivious to my discomfort, dragged me towards the more adventurous sections.

Years later, when I left for the US- J Mausi hugged me tight and told me that I was the child she never had. She also promptly told me to get a boyfriend. We both giggled. Then, immediately-:"Sush...what would your mother think!!

Utah

It's been a while since I posted. Life has kept me busy.This morning, errr.. afternoon rather (C'mon, its a Sunday afterall) I woke up thinking about Utah. Whenever I tell people I studied at the Utah State University in a small mid-western town called Logan in a predominantly conservative LDS community, I almost always get a raised eyebrow as a response. It makes me a little defensive of the place I lived for two years of my life and formed important relationships which stayed with me even after I moved back to India.

For one, when people think Utah - they think barren desert ,with miles and miles of flat land of cactus and shrubs with rattlesnakes and an occasional farmhouse breaking the monotony and a lone cowboy on his horse with a tilted mud crusted hat squinting his eyes at you and nodding his 'howdy' (Insert appropriate western cowboy music here).


I tell them- Think rolling hills and mountains, rivers, hidden creeks, open wide spaces , blue skies and white fluffy clouds. Like this.




They tell me Utah is lame because people in Utah don't go to wild parties over the weekend and get drunk and puke on the floor (and on themselves) and pass out - what's the fun without that?

I tell them- True, there are very very few bars where you can go drink yourself silly and puke on the floor (Or yourself ) - most people who like that kind of shit, do it in house parties. I've been to those a few times and I realized I don't enjoy puking. So instead, I would spend weekends like this .

Camping out with friends



Floating on the Tony Grove lake on a sunny Sunday



Camping at Yellowstone National Park, awed by the wonders of nature.




Learning how to appreciate good art with wonderful artists



Learning to play the Djembe by the fire on a clear summer night, having my first s'mores and watching shooting stars in the sky




Hiking up to the North window in Arches National park at night and lying on the rocks until midnight listening to silence and feeling tiny underneath the sky so full of shiny blinking stars.





They tell me , I missed out on the fun - These people from New York, Chicago, LA and California.

I tell them- I don't think so.

Pulikali at Suraj Kund Mela

Artists performing the Pulikali ( meaning : play of tigers) dance at Suraj Kund Mela 2011 in Faridabad, Haryana. The Pulikali is a dance form which originated in Kerala over 200 years ago and is said to reflect the wild and macho spirit of the beast. The dancers use steps and body language peculiar to the tiger being stalked by a hunter to the beats of the drums.