Signs of life

How do scientists look for life in other worlds? One of the most basic dilemmas is this- that we only know one way of defining carbon-based life. Beyond this, neither do we know what we are looking for, nor how we'd identify whatever interesting 'stuff' we picked up. And still there are enough of them, with telescopes aimed and microscopes at the ready, searching constantly, endlessly, through eons of space-time, for a sign. Just one sign.

On earth as in heaven, there are enough of us who do the same. We look to the stars and the great beyond for signs.

Under the guise of science and research, religion and tradition, the impulses that move us are the same- A basic human need for knowledge, and security in knowing. And so we sift through signs, from earth and star and instinct, asking as we examine each one- Is this it ? Is this a sign of life, a sign from God, a sign marking my place in the universe?

Circling back to the dilemma, we hold these things, not knowing if they are what we were looking for, nor knowing what the objects of our seeking look like. We pick our symbols, marking the end of our own personal quests, the end of our territories and desire to know. This much is enough, we say.

This little understanding, this greater world-view. This knowledge that stars are great spheres of fire, this faith that the fire in them shapes my destiny.

We pick our symbols, objects of power to us. A cross, a sacred thread, a pair of bangles marking a married woman. A totem pole, a ritual mask. Each of picks our objects, and we hold them and say- This much, and no more. This understanding is enough, this object powerful enough. Enough sustenance to live by, until the flame of life dies.

For myself, I hold them all. I hold lamps to be lit at night and sacred threads, meditations by the sea and insights from starlit forest nights. I cast them all back to the skies and ask still - Is this it? Is this all the understanding there is?

Things I wish I remembered

List # 2.

There are plenty of messages we throw out in time-capsule bottles, along the lines of "Things I wish I knew when I was younger". Now, I realize there are things I knew back then which made me a lot happier than some of the things I do now.

1. Sensitivity comes from moving out of oneself. Not by wallowing in self-pity or self-analysis.

2. It is okay to have and voice an opinion. There are only so many shades of grey. At the ends of the spectrum, call the colors black and white. Just like you see them.

3. Conflict keeps life on its toes. A good fight is an enriching experience.

Places I never meant to be

One of the golden rules of writing I read a while ago was to avoid the "noun as story idea" trap. I'd often find myself coming up with these ideas, for stories/ articles on 'Memory' or 'Taste', and wander around with this grand notion like a teenager writing poems on 'Love' and 'Heartbreak'.

This idea of lists (blatantly copied from a fictitious blog by a fictitious writer with writer's block), and this particular title (unrelated to the blog or writer) caught my eye. It's the name of a book I've never read, but would probably like.

Considering the amount of time I spend berating people around me for speaking and acting mindlessly, its a little humbling (to say the least) to realize how many times in life I've found myself in places I never planned to be in.

1. In the kitchen. Nowhere in the grand life plan that involved me being the celebrated writer at age 25 did this feature- That I would one day find myself perfectly content to be cooking recipes my grandmother once made, spending hours glazing a cake, or just creating dinner with whatever is in the fridge. Or (the horror of it !!) finding myself righteously shocked that a 24 year old girl didn't know how to fend for herself, food-wise.

2. The back of a police car. Yes, I realize even criminals don't really plan on being there..and maybe I shouldn't include this on a list of places I 'meant to be'. But it was interesting to find that even after a car crash and a loved one getting out of a really close shave, we sat there and joked about the weather as the cop dropped us off at the car dealership.

3. The gym. Me. The gym. Lifting weights. Running. Not a long walk as I chat with a friend, but running. And getting annoyed with girls who strut along at 3 miles an hour, chattering away and claiming to be 'running'. Ha. Beyond fat or fit, strong or fast, empowering or falling into cliches.. its just so much fun!

Kaathadi

Some days I feel like this- A brightly colored piece of thin paper, twisted and bent to a a shape sent whirling on a child's puff, ripped to shreds by a strong wind. Some days are like this, when all my form is weak and hollow, held in position by a pin on a twig. A word sends me soaring through the clouds, the wrong tone can blow my temper through the roof.

On days like this, I reach for this sense memory, the feel of my mother's hand holding mine. A time when that meant I must reach upward.

Her sari brushes against my cheek, silky cool. In the midst of a crowded Bombay pavement, her hand and her sari are my little wading pool of calm. What goes on in her head, rushing between afer-work errands dragging me along by one hand, her bag of vegetables in the other? I know now she must have been tired from work, and thoughts of the dinner that must be cooked. There must have been stress from the workplace, something all too familiar to my grown up self.

With my hand anchored in hers above, and the street vendors hawking such delights, I couldn't have known of these thoughts, or even cared. Every time we shopped at this particular junction, she'd buy me one of these. A kaathadi- Pink and yellow, blue and red, scraps of paper twisted into pinwheels. There was always one, unconditionally. (Is kaathadi the wrong word? But it is so apt to the purpose, and so I use the word).

How does one weigh the memories of childhood one against the other, to decide which to use for a particular spell of happiness? Looking back now, I cannot explain why this one stirs me so. But when I need a charm against rainy gloom, within or without, I use this one.

Some days, I am still too shallow for wells of stillness within. I am still short enough that I must reach upward, outside myself, for calm. And when I feel like a scrap of paper whirled through breezes of words from others, I fall back into this.

The warmth of her hand, the feel of silk on my cheek. I reach for bright pinwheels of memory, twisted into joy by a breeze not of my making. Leaning back, sometimes I let myself fall, and hope to catch the wind and rise again.

Pause.

Rolling over lazily, like waking up after a lazy Saturday afternoon nap, this space turns through my consciousness. A pause in the ebb and rush, a moment to ponder.

In my little half-way house, people come and go, rushing through their own forests, clearing their own paths. I watch each one's agenda, the goals that fulfil them, and avoid the probing questions- What next? What do you plan to do? How is the job hunt going? Are you planning to have kids? What after this? Frustration bubbles against the little joys, leaving me a frothing mess. I'd like to think of it as a celebratory glass of champagne, but a muddy puddle with frogs hopping in and out is probably more accurate.

Pause, as I attempt to still the water and see past the silt. Pause, as I wait for the questions to stop. As I watch the leaves turn, I remember that not all conversations need to be held on to for a lifetime. Words do not always hold power. I remember that I'm only wandering, I am not lost just because someone tells me I am. All opinions are not equal. I wait for balance, as the rocks and silt settle. People, opinions, words- I wait and watch them find their own spaces in my mind, clearing the surface for a new phase of life.

I wait and watch, as the old that is true does not wither. Past the questions, my mind still moves in the trees, breathes with the wind. The ocean's welcome does not change. On the beach, I wade into the waves. The tide is low, and the sun is setting. Cold sand slips between my toes, and strangely, does not slip past. The rush of waves is a mother's embrace, and I hear her voice welcome her daughter home. Poised in the water, I watch the sunset and the surfers, a sea lion swim past and mussels on the rocks. Each in their own rhythm , all with the ocean. I pause, waiting for the next wave to find my own.

Living the best life

Is not always the same as the life I live everyday. It means moving on from the familiar.Making choices.

Living my best life is not the same as doing my best at everything. It demands that I choose- Compromises are neither wrong nor avoidable. Compromises are sometimes the only way to prioritize.

The best life requires me to make an effort to get over fear. Uncertainty is a comfortable pool to wade in, but making an impression requires me to step out, leave wet footprints on ground I have not yet walked. And realize that it is okay to slip and fall. Only in losing my footing can I learn how to find it.

The best life leads with strings of reassurance. Responses when I steel myself for none. Reels of time instead of the deadlines I fear. Encouragement warming over spaces I paint in cold sweats of words. And reminders, always- Never to take anything in life too seriously, including my own panic. Thank you for the comments, all of you :)

The voices in my head..

..echo and bounce around in the silence. I listen to them all as they make their pitches.

There are women, many of them. One loves her husband and cries when he goes on work trips, even for a few days. She likes simple things- clothes, movies, eating out, spending time with friends. The other cries over her lost husband, and worries over where her jewelry is stored, whether it is safe. Left to herself, she could wish endlessly for days gone to return. The third lazes her days away, and tells me I lack experience, to take everything I am told with a pinch of salt. There are men, just as many. In them, I hear only undertones. hear the doubt in one's voice as he asks me what I plan to do, where I plan to go. I hear disapproval in the other. Why can't you be a professor? Why are you wasting your life like this? Do you know what you are doing?

I hear all of these-
Admiration
Unspoken envy
Doubt
Disapproval
Fear
Uncertainty

What I don't hear is a voice worth following. What I don't hear is a voice I can trust. I miss the voice that I used to follow on leaps of faith. I miss the sound of my confident silences.

Quotes for the day

In a microwave world*
Anticipation is like ketchup*
and Power is neutral, like tofu.*

It's apparently what you do with it that matters.

Push-button publishing seems to mean that we can now say the first things that should never have been in our heads in the first place. (And yes, maybe that applies just as equally to this post, inspired by the worst *quotes I have read, all in one day, before noon). Brains like frilly multi-colored pinata pigs, shaken together, words like confetti strung into party favors to be dispensed to the children that came to the party, too polite to refuse to read.

Sharing

"You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."

I give you these words, these quotes and songs and realities I have learned, I have heard. I give you stories of experiences, both mine and those of others. I give you time, sympathy, affection. Gestures of caring. I give you this space in my thoughts. This time and space in my mind, in my conscious actions- this should be giving, should it not?

But at the end of it, I am less. There is little left in me to offer, of worth to you. Am I lessened this way because I gave of myself? I doubt it. The self, the true self, should grow when shared. In the silence at the end of our conversation, shouldn't the self expand in the long exhale? How do I find this self, the one that is replenished by sharing with another?

When I give you these things (quotes/words/ideas), you construct for me a little space, it seems. A reality that is encompassed only by those things we share. And I give, eagerly, to gain that space, that corner of your consciousness that I can stake a claim to. But neither is that my sole reality, nor do I have any permanence in that claim in your mind. But each time you want to fill that emptiness, you come to me for words. And I oblige, believing I am giving of myself. I believe I am being good, a true friend, in listening to you and allaying your doubts, I like to think I am being true to myself. But which self? Certainly not the one that wanted to grow, and not one that is any richer for our conversations.

Outside your mind, outside the structures my words construct in your realities, there must be a self that is fuller and more complete, a wellspring that these small streams bubble from. Something deeper and truer, quieter and more content. Fuller in its search for cohesive, unifying thought than I am in these chance findings of shared phrases.

Perhaps love

(Old favorites, this one is by John Denver).

Perhaps love is like a resting place
A shelter from the storm
It exists to give you comfort
It is there to keep you warm
And in those times of trouble
When you are most alone
The memory of love will bring you home

Perhaps love is like a window
Perhaps an open door
It invites you to come closer
It wants to show you more
And even if you lose yourself
And don't know what to do
The memory of love will see you through

Oh, love to some is like a cloud
To some as strong as steel
For some a way of living
For some a way to feel
And some say love is holding on
And some say letting go
And some say love is everything
And some say they don't know

Perhaps love is like the ocean
Full of conflict, full of change
Like a fire when it's cold outside
Thunder when it rains
If I should live forever
And all my dreams come true
My memories of love will be of you

----------

(John Denver/ Placido Domingo)

Wish you were here.

I wish you were here with me now, my sad-eyed friend. On this winding road on these mountains you dreamed of, I see past light and color into a long-ago Sunday afternoon. How patiently you clipped those articles out of the Pioneer, the travel section every weekend afternoon, after everyone had read the papers. I see your fingers fold the edges over, so they'd fit in the folder you made yourself. I see you caress those yellowing sheets in the night, as you dreamt of Paris and New York and San Francisco and the big, bright future.

I wish you were here, all passion and fury. You would have liked this, I think, leaves trembling in the wind and the smell of fall in the air. The autumn leaves you wrote about, when the closest you had been to them was a handful of pressed maple leaves, over twenty years old. I see your hands, holding the fragments together in Delhi afternoons, making envelopes to keep them safe.

I miss your clear-eyed compassion, your sense of where you knew your life was going. I miss your intuition about people, sharp as diamonds. I wish you were here, to frame this confusing world with your ideals, your sharp sense of space and togetherness. I miss the peace you had through your anger, the way each word you spoke came from the heart, whether in anger or in love.

I wish you were here, if only to turn me back into who I used to be when I was you.

I say I want to write.

Doing what you love, and making a living doing what you love, seem to be two entirely different things for me. I say I want to write, and I know I mean this.
But making a living out of writing requires that I prove my worth, show the world why I am demanding my dues.. and words are so personal to me. It feels like casting myself out on the high seas, like standing in front of an audience proving I have talent. But words are not my talent, they are just me. Asking to be employed for the words I use feels like declaring to the world- I have two feet and two hands! I deserve a job!

Asking to be employed for the words I use feels:

Like begging to be loved.

Scary. To be told that my words are no good feels like being told I am no good either.

Not like me. I am not an aggressive seller, I would rather stay in my corner and watch you than talk to you. Networking and job-hunting require me to become this facade I practice, actually be this person I pretend to be with strangers. The girl who practices conversations before casual dinners suddenly needs to be the person who actually can carry on that casual banter. But the person who writes is the girl in the corner, not the chatterbox with the fake smiles and hugs. How do I sell a person I can no longer be?

I say I want to write, but the "I" that wants to write needs to grow into an actual adult, an "I" who is capable of both writing and networking. Right now, being told to network or talk to someone makes me want to curl up under a rock and go to sleep.

Living in faith

The kind of blinkered faith that believes in a 'personal' God- One who loves you unconditionally and will never fail you etc, always seems like blind denial to me. Is such a God really possible, and if yes, how does he (as a neutral pronoun, those more particular are welcome to substitute :)) exist in the obvious contradictions that would ensue? One man wants to steal and kill, the other man wants to protect. How can the same God grant both wishes, and if he does not, is the answer only "Have faith, God will give you another chance" to both?

A post by a friend, and several discussions with another, prompted the attempt below (And yes, this is my way of saying- Blame them, not me ;))

Despite my opening ideas, faith is, to me, essential to existence. The contradiction and confusions come in when we choose to make faith personal, believe that the universe exists solely to fulfil our desires. I prefer, instead, the idea of a balance, the universe as a tightrope and a free-fall and the swinging grace of the trapeze artiste.

There are those of us who choose the tightrope- We insist on one god, one purpose, and refuse to look up from our feet. We clutch the rope between our toes, fearful of looking up or around, at anything beyond this rope, this rope that we believe is the One True Thing. Some people are fortunate enough to make it from one end of the rope to the other, with only a few close shaves. Others fall, crashing down into the sticky web of 'reality' that awaits below.

When we fall, some of us look up, spot the rope, and focus our energies on getting back on it, and when we do, forget the fall, and never question the time the Rope failed to hold us up. Others hate the rope for letting them down, and struggle the rest of the way across the netting, limbs poking,losing balance, and insisting, announcing,that the rope failed them and this struggle is, in fact, the easier way. Who needs a higher power, when we have limbs to plod along, however unwieldy the path?

And there are those that spot the swings, realize that life isn't a straight and narrow way, and the rope will not always hold you up. Learning to swing is tricky, rising and falling in the rhythms of these ropes and bars, staying perfectly tuned to the universe of the trapeze. Of course we fall, sometimes, and need to struggle with unpleasantly close encounters with reality- but this is usually when we haven't yet learned the perfect balance. There are as many ways to be held lightly through confidence and faith, as there are ways to forget both and fall.

The question is- do you have faith in the rope, the net, or your capacity to move in perfect synchrony with the swings?

Make a joyful noise

I've been struggling with this last phase of writing. Friend/critic tells me to perk up, having come this far all I have to do is this one last thing. Be boisterous and command attention, glorify the work and end on the high note. But the voice in my head refuses to go away. It reminds me of the screw-ups, the failed experiments and the many, many let-downs. Of the critique I'm still waiting to receive, the observation that I did the right things and wasn't rewarded in kind. The voice in my head refuses to shut up and let me remember why I'm here.
Then I came across this story-


A wise old gentleman retired and purchased a modest home near a junior high school. He spent the first few weeks of his retirement in peace and contentment.

Then a new school year began.

The very next afternoon three young boys, full of youthful, after-school enthusiasm, came down his street, beating merrily on every trash can they encountered. The crashing percussion continued day after day, until finally the wise old man decided it was time to take some action.

The next afternoon, he walked out to meet the young percussionists as they banged their way down the street.

Stopping them, he said, "You kids are a lot of fun. I like to see you express your exuberance like that. In fact, I used to do the same thing when I was your age. Will you do me a favor? I'll give you each a dollar if you'll promise to come around every day and do your thing."

The kids were elated and continued to do a bang-up job on the trashcans.

After a few days, the old-timer greeted the kids again, but this time he had a sad smile on his face. "This recession's really putting a big dent in my income," he told them. "From now on, I'll only be able to pay you 50 cents to beat on the cans."

The noisemakers were obviously displeased, but they accepted his offer and continued their afternoon ruckus.

A few days later, the wily retiree approached them again as they drummed their way down the street.

"Look," he said, "I haven't received my Social Security check yet, so I'm not going to be able to give you more than 25 cents. Will that be okay?"

"A freakin' quarter?" the drum leader exclaimed. "If you think we're going to waste our time, beating these cans around for a quarter, you're nuts! No way, dude. We quit!" And the old man enjoyed peace and serenity for the rest of his days.


..It's not about the quarter, or the dollar. It's just about the fun of banging the tin cans together.

About a story

A story like a tree, out of context. Out of context, a tree is an aesthetic, shapeless continuum- Root and leaf-tip turn to branch and root hair, and who can tell one end from the other? In a space beyond soil and sky, where does a tree begin, and where does it end? With twists and turns and sudden dips, we are like trees too, unchanging in our essence as we move through life. Our stories have no beginnings, and no clear ends, in the immenseness of time.

Yet the tales we tell must have these points, starts and finishes and dramatic changes, as if our continuum must have these reminders, that there is another space, a story-space, where lives begin and end in sharp punctuation. It takes a rare talent to move through these spaces and make them meet- Weave words like fingers tracing the lines of a tree, marking cracks in the bark and the softness of petal into the shape of a story one can tell, a tale worth sharing.

Gently, word-fingers probe disastrous lives, turning them into things of beauty, each in their own light. An alcoholic mother, a struggling step-father. The life of a writer. Drug abuse and unsafe teenage sex. Imperfection made perfect, in the light of kindness. What can happen, in these fragments? A story, most stories, would begin and end, characters stepping into glorious sunsets or people placing sawed-off shotguns in their mouths. The tree-story, instead, just watches, as the mother and daughter fight at the end as they did at the start, as the father struggles to write as he does throughout. Friends flit in and out, incidents occur, and life goes on, in much the same vein as it did on page one, if you called that the beginning.

Less about conflict and resolution than about the observation of both, and the reminder that people, however lost and angry and screwed up, have these sparks of loveliness, like perfectly phrased joy in a story of despair. It's about paying attention to these moments, because in a story like this, people, like trees, are unchanging and ever-growing, a seamless weave of beauty and imperfection.

(The book: Imperfect Birds, by Anne Lamott)

Note to self :)

"It's about paying attention. When people ask me how I am these days, I say, "Better than I think", because it's good to notice that my life is pretty great, even if my mind isn't."

- From Imperfect birds, Anne Lamott

Disconnect

Imagine, now, the most serious relationship of your life. You and a significant other, bound as close as two individuals could possibly be. Life without this other is inconceivable, he/she is essential as breath and blood to you. Your well-being depends on the other. Sickness and health, laughter and security and fun. Even the glow on your face and the sparkle in your eye. Without this being, you would never even try: Hanging out with friends. Shaking hands with your colleagues. Taking a vacation. Playing in the waves. Growing with your children.

What do you imagine this other to be like? Someone you know and love, deeply care about? Reality check. This being is a stranger. You spend every minute of every day together, without ever getting to know one another. You never have any fun together. You hang out on the couch, eat together and sleep together, never knowing what goes on inside each of you, what the other likes to do or what he/she is capable of accomplishing. The other never achieves their potential, only exists. And when someone asks you, "What does _ do?" You reply with a laugh, "Oh, nothing at all. Does _ really look like _ is capable of anything?"

Despite your closeness and absolute need for one another, this other is never worthy of your esteemed time, attention or respect. Why would you bother, when your exalted mind has so much more to occupy itself with, and the other is so quiet, so insignificant, undemanding and tolerant of your impositions?

Until the day he/she gives up on you, this stranger is ignored. And the day it happens, miracles are forgotten and feats extraordinaire ignored, and you moan to the world about how you're growing old and heavy, and your body no longer serves you the way it used to.

The popularity credo

Want to be THAT girl/guy? You know, the one that's always dressed right, the center of conversations, the one that gets invited everywhere! You can be him/her- Now you too can get all the jokes and never be sidelined again! Why would you want to be the one in the corner when you could be the star of every show, every time? Follow these instructions, and you should be there in no time ! :)

Conversations-

1. Only discuss 'patriotic' things- Football (not soccer), tailgating and those immigrants that ruin your life.

2. Forget absolute truth. The only important facts are the ones that work in your favor.

3. Smile often, however meaningless. If possible, fling yourself at people at intervals and hug them randomly.

Looks-

4. Spend all your available hours online, 'researching' the latest colors and trends. It helps to just buy everything on the 'look' in a single purchase. Plus, free shipping!

5. Gym mindlessly. Tell people you run. Run because it is popular. All these things are much more effective than doing something you might actually enjoy.

6. Count calories. But go to Tim Horton's anyway- how can you not hang out with the guys/ chicks?

Personality-

7. Reference #1. Don't waste your time trying to figure out what you like or who you are. What does that matter?

8. Drink often. Or just get drunk often. It helps you fit in at the tailgating parties.

9. Read the reviews. When discussing books/movies/ art, it helps to be able to say what everyone else is thinking.

10. Complete selflessness. Your personal mantra- I am what is in today, I am what is popular, I am merely a vessel for your greater thoughts, O Latest Trends.

Moving on

I am afraid to cut the tags on these clothes. New clothes, for a new life. Across a continent they will fly, with the tags of my fear trailing behind. A simple line to cross, from precaution to paranoia. After years of waiting and hoping, I find myself suddenly unable to hold on to the right side of that line. Through so many dark months I have waited and prayed, prepared for the worst, and now- I am unable to have faith in the best. The self that I believed in, that held on to strong words and courage, laughed through hunger and hurt and disbelief and fear seems suddenly dead. Replaced instead by a woman that trembles at good fortune, and leaves the tags on the new clothes, leaves the boxes half-packed. Having spent my strong self on hope, the shell that remains is lost, unsure of what to do with the future that was once hoped for.

The only certainty that remains is uncertainty, this sureness that fortune is not in my hands. The girl that called to the winds and trusted the universe to hold her up in flight suddenly cowers under this single certainty- that the winds are treacherous; they turn without warning and dance to malicious calls that I do not hear.

And so I leave the tags on the clothes, in case they must be returned. And I leave the boxes half-packed, unsure of where to send them and when. I worry about what comes next, even as I say I have lived through the worst. And when I am spent with fear, I free fall with the words of my favorite poet, that give way under my feet and don't even attempt to hold me up-

"Ek sailaab tha, sara ghar beh gaya. Phir bhi jeene ka, thoda sa dar reh gaya."
(The flood washed all of my home away. And despite that, I am still a little afraid to live.)

Butterfly words

.. flit through the heart, like the prickle of pain on old scars stretching.

"Hope is home, and the heart is free."


Words held like a rosary through many long nights, faithless words, empty words, words that fought to live across years and years. Strong words, resonating with wisdom I could not comprehend, words that I cling to, with faith not quite blind but not quite seeing either. Because seeing is believing, after all.

Linkage disequilibrium

Non-random. Two forms of a gene, not necessarily identical, nor in the same place. Sometimes, even on different pieces of DNA altogether. For many, many reasons, they should not link. Should not move together in evolutionary space-time without obvious reason. Yet they do.

Insomnia. The internet. Too much coffee, too much work. Too little time. Two continents and a 12 hour time difference should equal less connection.

But through your nights and my days, we write together. Through my days and your nights, we still share- Music. Work. Ideas. Coffee.

Plugged in to conversations with my mother, still. Remember birthdays from another lifetime.

Tuned out of randomness. Workplace small talk. Who used the last of the cells Who stuffed tips last Send out those emails asap. On the same plane, meaningless.

I move like an allele linked to another place, another time. In happy disequilibrium.

Middle ground

Once upon a time, in sunset hues in a distant land, my father held Lehninger's Biochemistry on his lap and explained glycolysis and enantiomers, the cycles within cycles of breathing and respiration. In that same golden light, my mother's voice beckoned, the rhythm of Tennyson's Brook exacted to scientific precision, each word clear as the molten glass alchemists shaped once.

Now words flounder and stand bunched up in the spotlight, refugees fleeing clarity and fearing shadow. At work, I must write to simplify. The rhythms of oxidative phosphorylation and voltage-gated ion channels must be broken down, glued together with what's popular and catchy to appeal to the masses.'Science' must not be speculative. 'Interesting' is sacrificed and turned into the accurate, as if the two must necessarily be mutually exclusive.

To my eye, sunlight bouncing off chlorophyll and phytopigments is still poetry, still worth lyrics set to metered rhyme as precise as the electrons dancing. But I am told poetry must not be scientific or lucid, poetry may only be in abstract terms that complicate the most basic human emotions. Are emotions less meaningful because they have scientific explanations, or beauty lost because there is an explanation to it?

I teeter on the scales, searching for the middle ground where both sides of my childhood can still exist in that same equal, golden light.

Grass

It is everywhere, underfoot in everyone's life. Nowhere of consequence, and still everywhere. In the end, everything returns to the earth and turns to grass. And it is nothing, of no importance, really. Even at the end, who thinks of grass as their next destination?

When I am sad, I turn to the grass. It is everywhere, and I can turn to it through crowded streets and rainy windows. Unnoticed, I slip into it, anywhere and everywhere. Like grass, I can be nowhere and nobody, anywhere. Un-peopled, a grassy world is a happy place. It is people that make me unhappy.

Being judgemental

When asked for an opinion, you wrap it up in words like these- Might be, perhaps, "to them it's the right thing, and who am I to judge?"

Perhaps you are right, and I might be wrong, in forming opinions in complete sentences. To them it may be the right thing to do, but I am asking about you. Who aren't you, that you would deny yourself the right to an opinion, a thought, conviction in your own beliefs? In this limited space-time, why not frame your personality in words that express your self with conviction, your views punctuated clearly in the light of your own reasoning?

It is a contradiction to think that one of my firmest beliefs is in being individualistic- to 'let' others do what they want without forcing them to change, give people the space and time they need for self-realization. But I have this need to evaluate, weigh the actions of one against the other and in the difference frame another facet of my understanding. After the balancing, they may step off my mental scales and go back to being themselves, but I seem unable to let go off this process. You, on the other hand, have no problems with never considering, never balancing and accepting unconditionally. They are what they are, and I am what I am. Why must we weigh and measure that as greater or this as lesser?

I find myself in the tilt of those scales, in the balancing act that helps me decide how to live my life as myself. And I ask you now- where do you find yourself, in this unconditional sea of unthinking acceptance? How, in the million ways of living a life and being happy, do you decide which one you want?

Strength training

There has always been this refrain, in the background.
Lose ten pounds.
Pretty. Dark. Big. Graceful.
Lose ten pounds.
Wide hips. Bad skin. Great hair. Big feet.
Lose ten pounds.

Through years and phases, swinging through all my memory of childhood and beyond, are these words. Physical descriptors, half-pleasant, half-unpleasant. The day I overheard my PT instructor pass a comment about my giant hips, and the same evening that the ladies in the temple gushed over me, asking if I was the dancer scheduled for the evening's performance. The day I was supposed to be sleeping, when a despairing maiden aunt asked my mother- "She's so dark and fat, make sure she loses weight or you will never find a groom." I was twelve. Being told, through acne and awards, top marks and good writing and terrible physics, to lose ten pounds to look good. As if they were all that stood between me and confidence, success and true love.

Confused, I chose to lose the body, in dreams that left me single, and preferably invisible. And when the refrain changed, it only confused me more. Suddenly, it is acceptable to be unhealthily obese and still consider oneself lovely. There are opinions and clothes and people and places that have expanded to fit these sizes, and I am still confused, unsure whether to stand when they call for the petites or the large-framed women, the tall or the average or the perfectly-toned. I am lost in many descriptors- It is only one body, and I don't know where to place it.

I see-saw in self images, the woman's compliments struggling to outweigh the child's hurt, all over an image and size that has remained largely unchanged. I've asked, over and over- Am I beautiful? And never believed the answer yes, because beauty itself was so hard to define, it seemed. Of late, this is my answer- Lift the weight, don't obsess over losing it. Don't avoid the comments, just outrun them.

And I forget them all, in the hardest, most comforting way I have found. Beauty is in strength, in knowing my possibilities and reaching past my toes, and resilience is in beauty, expanding my limits as my arm arches overhead, weights in hand. And beauty and strength come together in the most perfect way possible when I run, in the feel of road and wind and sun.

And to all those words that I questioned myself with, I have an answer that pleases both the child and the woman within.

"Oh you're so pretty!"
Perhaps, but I can run 20 miles.

"You'll never get those jeans past those hips."
Perhaps, but I can still run 20 miles.

In strength and health, in the light of my clear, fatigued mind after a run, my body becomes visible to me, slowly. Just as it is, and it fits me perfectly, regardless of the perceptions its sometimes squeezed into.

Middle ground-1

Once upon a time, in sunset hues in a distant land, my father held Lehninger's Biochemistry on his lap and explained glycolysis and enantiomers, the cycles within cycles of breathing and respiration. In that same golden light, my mother's voice beckoned, the rhythm of Tennyson's Brook exacted to scientific precision, each word clear as the molten glass alchemists shaped once.

Now words flounder and stand bunched up in the spotlight, refugees fleeing clarity and fearing shadow. At work, I must write to simplify. The rhythms of oxidative phosphorylation and voltage-gated ion channels must be broken down, glued together with what's popular and catchy to appeal to the masses.'Science' must not be speculative. 'Interesting' is sacrificed and turned into the accurate, as if the two must necessarily be mutually exclusive.

To my eye, sunlight bouncing off chlorophyll and phytopigments is still poetry, still worth lyrics set to metered rhyme as precise as the electrons dancing. Poetry must not be scientific or lucid, poetry may only be in abstract terms that complicate the most basic human emotions. Are emotions less meaningful because they have scientific explanations, or beauty lost because there is an explanation to it?

I teeter on the scales, searching for the middle ground where both sides of my childhood can still exist in that same equal, golden light.

The comfort of myth

What do you do, when faced with insurmountable obstacles? Over the last few years, I've had more than what I let on or calculated for. Some of them, I knew I was getting into a challenge- research, marriage, living with strangers. Others, I doubt anyone could have anticipated. The most trained researchers and doctors in the most scientifically advanced country have stood staring at numbers in charts, unable to resolve the contradictions between numbers and 'reality'. There are no explanations, except the ones I offer myself, trusting in the power of the mind to heal just as strongly as it can hurt.

And there are these, not quite as petty as the quotidien struggles of kitchen supplies, not as painful or requiring of faith as medical mysteries. Just this everyday struggle of incompetence and inefficiency, of poor work ethic and people so irresponsible and blind to their own insufficiencies as they blame the world for their problems, and I struggle, pulling every fiber of my being together to remind myself to stay in the present. Not dwell on the mistakes they made two years ago, not dwell on what should have been done or could have been done ten years ago. Live in the now, and deal with the current problem- Advice that I excel at applying to personal problems, and struggle so much with at work and elsewhere.

I always assumed objectivity and rational thought was easier outside the little bubble of the people closest to me. When logic and basic evolutionary principles that assume people would choose the best actions to ensure their survival fail, I fall back on myth. The stories of my childhood, of an egoistic, pompous man, who was granted a wish by the gods. (Why did the gods grant the wish of a demon? Who knows, but in an attempt to explain a world where bad people have power, let's assume they do.)

Once upon a time, there lived a man who prayed and prayed, and was granted a wish, that if he laid his hand on a person's head, they would be reduced to ashes. He traveled the world, creating havoc and pain and confusion, until the gods were forced to intervene. I take silly satisfaction in the fact that god chose the form of a woman to mete his judgement. The girl danced with the man, danced until he matched her skill, and then forced him to follow as she placed her hand on her head. And in following, he was forced to face his own malice, and lost power and self when he turned to a heap of ashes.

I am no beautiful dancer descended from the skies, nor are these people demons of limitless power, that I should dance to their tunes and beat them at their own games. But I wonder still, in moments of frustration, what would happen if I forced them to face their own contradictions. In the objective world, my mind plays these games, where myth and strategic manipulation dance this jubalbandi that brings me to a space where, if not resolution, at least there is solace.

Ebb and flow

Am I writing about dandelions a little too much? They are everywhere now, sprinkled through the mundane-ness of lawns like sudden smiles, like the simple blessings that so often make for a perfect day. Spilling over, unasked for. Like relationships that span fifteen years, stretching and snapping at the seams and rebounding to a grateful security, from dead leaf to blossom to seeds on the wind. Like our families blending, past age and geography and language, simply because once we picked flowers together for our botany projects. Picking up where we left off, peering at ferns and moss together, knowing our eyes are equally open to these littlenesses (like the smell of herbs in warm spring grass) and then swirling into the future as your daughter fills my lap with wildflowers. Blessings, like wildflowers it seems, just wait for us to look for them with innocence, with less expectation and more joyfulness in these simple blues and yellows.

Beloved

Over and over she comes up to me. My back is always to her. I am browsing in an airport bookstore, at home among my favorite authors. She is always pretty and coltish, sometimes awkward, other times cute. Her dark hair is always chopped short. Over and over, she calls my name. Not the name you know me by, not the name I call myself. She calls me Akka, or Maasi, or Chitti.. It is always soft and shy and tentative, and there is always music in her life. Sometimes she is a singer, other times a musician. Her name is always a variant of the word 'Beloved'. She is named for love, and she calls my name as if I would forget her. She is the haunted one, and yet I am the one who lies awake all night. Dreamless and dry-eyed and worrying, as I browse my little bookstore paradise, and she walks up to me and calls out my name from her memories.

She is always lost, and always hesitant. I never know where she has been, all these years. You see, I never knew her. Only her mother, who was someone I loved, who married and had this child, beloved and precious. And walked away with her, from her..into places that I can never see, cannot comprehend. And this child comes back to me, adult and questioning, big-eyed and innocent. And I never have the answers.

Where were you when my father hit my mother? Why was she so full of herself that she never saw me? Where were you when she walked away from him? Why could she never be happy? Didn't you love me, that you would keep in touch and look for me on trains and planes and the cities you knew my mother would run to and take me along?

And most of all, she asks me this - Why did you love her so much, when she was so flawed? And if you loved her, why didn't you stop her?

In dreams, over and over.. I say I'm sorry, and I wish I had been there. Awake, I remind myself that I am here, and I am sorry, and I still do nothing.

What a difference..

I've always had this not-so-secret fascination with makeover shows. Homes, wardrobes, people- Just a difference in fabric, posture, lighting, a slightly different tint of blush or yellow on a wall or face, and there's the fairy-tale transformation of the ugly duckling to the swan. According to the people on these shows, the right dress can make all the difference in finding the perfect job, true love, self-confidence, and anything else you might be looking for.

He first caught my eye at the copier machine in the office yesterday- Blond, bespectacled, and incredibly cute. He caught my eye, but fairly sure he'd pay no attention to me, I gave him a polite half-smile and turned away to wage my daily battle with the monster machine that refuses to yield my printouts without several slams and kicks (Yes, this is why I work out.) When I turned around again, he was still there, staring at me, gape-jawed and fascinated. Wow. Him, looking at me? Who would've thought? I'm pretty sure he doesn't talk to strange nerdy girls.
But a tentative, smiling 'Hi' later, he walked across the room to me.

"Hi, are you a real doctor? Can I have one of those?" (pointing to the surgical glove dangling from my pocket).
Apparently my white lab coat and the right accessories (blue glove, anyone?) can transform me from a stranger that one never talks to, to an object of absolute fascination to a six year old.

Into dandelions

On the bus, through a windowpane, I slip
Into the grass.
Up these small sunbursts of yellow, I rise
On birdsong,
A single note held up to the clouds.
Slide down branches held up to the light
Through petals, into the strength of tree root and earth
And back into myself, replenished, complete.

'I' write, and is it the voice of grass, or clouds, or the parched self that slipped into them? It seems I only find myself when I can learn to move into a greater consciousness of self.

Choosing my confessions

There are words, and there are words. I pick and choose, gleaning and matching words to thought. I could write, I think, a poem about becoming the wind and ruffling the beautiful uncut hair of the earth as I walked across the parking lot last night. Or perhaps a symphony of the heart and muscle as they dance together on a long run, paced to the rhythm of racing blood and air. Wrap words around the way I hold silence like a precious secret in time slipped carelessly through the weave of inane chatter. If I could choose the words to wrap them, I would gift these to you- These silences of power and calm and contentment, a spell against all the dark magic the world chooses to throw our way. A spell to hold you calm as you ride out the winds that fling you wildly through these times. I wish I could take you into this realization of oneness that gives me so much faith, this infallible sense of security in the universe. But there are words that can be spoken, and words I cannot find, and so I choose my confessions and my silences, the writing and the living.

In silence, I work and run and talk and laugh and live. There is a time for words, and a time to wrap myself in silence and drift on spring breezes into summer, hoping you catch the wind and drift with me.

Homecoming

I have lived in this city for 4 years and six months to the day. I've walked and run and driven all over these streets, shopped the stores and know the interesting places in the area. Planted flowers and pulled weeds through summer,watched bulbs I planted come up in the spring. Shoveled snow, built snowmen, thrown snow balls and made angels. Baked cookies and decorated Christmas trees, lit lamps for Diwali and eaten pongal with friends. Lived with friends and family, fallen out of love and in it, gotten married and played house. I've grown up here, in many ways.

And still, at the end of the day, I want to go home. Home to dusty streets and a pani-puri wala, home to noise and confusion and screaming contests with my mother, the maid, the furniture delivery guy, and the kid across the street. Just home. Home to the smell of rain and my mother's cooking, home to harsh white tube lights and laughing with my father. Where for some reason, I lose weight even as I eat my fill, where my skin stops reacting to the sun even when I spend the entire day outdoors. Where life flows seamlessly from the world around into me and back again.

It's not like I didn't try. Love, work, friends, traditions, fun- I listed the ingredients and captured them all, but it still wasn't home, until the sun rose this morning.

As I drove to work, the winter sun-that-might-have-been moon played through bare branches and wimpy clouds, pretending, trying, to warm the earth. And for the first time, I felt the season change. Something elemental, for there is nothing to suggest spring yet. Something instinctive, as the physical memory plugged in at last, connecting me to the pace of the seasons and whispering of things that are and things to come. The gentleness of snow, the depth of springtime, the strength of flowers and the warmth of the earth shielded by winter.

Once again, I feel the slant of the sun in my veins, as it changes from a blazing sunset on a Delhi terrace to this moon-sun that plays through trees and roofs and dances to a rhythm that I have only just begun to sense. I am learning, at last, the feel of the earth beneath my feet, the wind and the sun and the subtler, softer words they speak in this air. At last, we're on the home stretch. I touch the earth, and the earth touches me.

Spare me spring-time, this year.
Saturated color, perfect pastels
Arrangements of adequate proportion and number
A continuous striving for harmony in monotonous buzzing spaces
Counted, shaped, pruned and prosperous
Spare me rhythmic repetition and those horrendous bursts-
Of obviously unexpected fake cheer and inane contrived mystery.

Clutch instead at words retrieved from dusty clarity,
Hold them from slipping into this anonymity of spring.
Give me hungry words, intense as dust choking my breath.
Words that lie parched in the sun,
then swell with the rain and flood the spirit.
Give me words that fight to live.

There are these words of power, that escape as whiffs
From traffic jams and haggling vendors and pollution and hunger-
In little puffs, there are genuine smiles, real anger
Catch those crests and weave them into words for me again.
Give me words that ooze and crack and bleed
Spare me the flowers, this year.

If you're Indian (or India-aware), you're likely to be familiar with the name 'IIT', and what it might mean to someone in Class 12 studying science. In case you're neither of those, suffice it to say that a while ago, about ten or twenty ambitious, intelligent 16 year olds in the country killed themselves because they couldn't get into the IITs to study engineering. A handful of others would die after getting into this prestigious institute, and it usually had nothing to do with the academic pressure, which was, and is, legendary.

But what I'm about to tell you today has nothing to do with those many suicides. It's about a fish tank in a cafeteria in one of the oldest IIT campuses. It's an extremely well-kept, large tank, out in the open where sunlight filters through trees and glistens off a dozen large white fish. Try and take a look at it sometime, even perhaps as you rush into the cafeteria to ask directions to the railway station, desperately trying to beat traffic and get on the train home. With my need to notice and admire them even as we rushed on our way, and your annoyance with my lack of focus on flagging an auto down. Really, did you think I would forget how to wave my fingers to get the driver's attention if I did not focus all my energies on my arm ?

In a rambling walk over the hills of thought, with perhaps a little dabbling in streams of consciousness on the way home, my point has to do with those fish, and our differing reactions to them. The point itself is a simple one, and short too-

Happiness is peripheral.

If I could offer only piece of advice to you and get you to accept it, that would be it. Life is ridiculously hard, and ignoring peripheral joy doesn't make it simpler. The big issues are and always will be the big issues.

Work.
Food.
Health.
Money.
Relationships.

There will never be enough of the first few, and there will always be one too many inconvenient relationships. But happiness weaves itself in and out of it all, and keeps you company through all the striving, if you only pay a little attention.

Instead, we walk these long difficult roads, with me stopping to pick dandelions and watch butterflies and fish, and you dragging me back to keep my eyes on some far-off, as yet invisible grand prize that we are all endlessly striving for. When I show you the dandelions, you only say, "That's not important right now." "Let's stay focused here." You remind me- the road is long, it will soon be night, we are running out of food and must make for the next town for resources, or wolves might fall on us in the night. We must hurry, and hurry now. Don't lose sight of the big picture. The dandelions can wait.

For what, I wonder? And why?

Of (oxy)morons..

Voice your opinion.
VOTE NOW.
Express your feelings.
Follow your innermost dreams to the point of idiocy. Not insanity, which would be far more acceptable, at least to me.

Self-expression is often over-rated. Why is the constant casting forth of the self so important? So much more fun to sit back and watch people act like morons in an attempt to convince the world they're right and interesting and their opinions on furniture design, hangovers and good restaurants are of greater significance to the world than most other things.

Suddenly, so few people seem worth engaging in conversation with. Am I talking to the wrong people, or talking about the wrong things?
(Yes, I realize this post makes me sound like a conceited, opinionated jerk too.If you don't like it, please excuse yourself while I finish growing up here.)

Even my silence is filled with these opinions- foolish, conceited opinions that leave me unsatisfied and disgusted, yet unable to move past them into things more meaningful and permanent.