There is beauty in organized living.
A neat row of houses.
Identical picket fences.
Lush lawns in the front yard
and a vegetable patch in the backyard.
Spotlessly clean roads
an advert for clean, healthy living.

Oh it is so beautiful.

But there is adventure in chaos.
A tall house flanked by stout ones.
A three-storeyed overlooking a thatched one-room tenement.
Mud roads cohabiting with tarred ones.
Pot-holes a part of life.
Mystery in every street corner.
Every inch of space occupied by variety
colors galore
people as varied as spices
and flavored in characteristics as well.

Oh it is so beautiful
to have a constant adrenalin rush
not knowing what you can expect next.

That's what makes life in my country
worth living.

Life in India can never be boring for
every street is like a Da Vinci work of art
it has the pathos of the Last Supper and the
the mystery of Monalisa.
Not to mention the
sunny disposition of Van Gogh's Sunflowers.

Life here in my city is like a painting.

I have always been fascinated by new born babies.

There is something miraculous about their little fingers and toes. They are so tiny, fragile and beautiful.

And then it hits me. I too was like that once upon a time.

Wow, the miracle of life!

Above all I have always wondered: what do new born babies think about?

There must be something tossing around those little heads, something that is not yet connected to the world that they have come into but from where they have come forth.
Something pure. Something powerful.

What are they thinking?

No matter what I am sure it must be something marvelous.

What could it be?

Sometimes, when I see a picture that I have clicked I'm flooded with happiness for no apparent reason.

It might be an inconspicuous, ordinary image.

No matter, how hard I look within its frame I fail to see the exact reason as to why it makes me happy.

The lighting, the composition, the object, the colors, the everything is sometimes less than ordinary.

Yet,it would make my heart puff a little not with pride but with joy.

A smile would spill over unable to contain itself.

The joy within would brighten my eyes.

I would again go back to the image and scratch my head, "What is it?"

Nada. No answer. Just pure joy that I am looking at something beautiful, at least for me, and that it makes me happy.

It took me sometime to understand a simple truth. Just like how you don't look a gift horse in its mouth, you don't HAVE to find the reason for your happiness. You don't have to justify it. If something makes you happy, accept it, relish it, and build on it. You really don't need to go looking for a reason.

The day when we need a reason to be happy is an indication that we are going downhill.

This is one such image. It is a picture of an electric pole. Technically, there is nothing in it that screams `be happy, smile, say cheers' - still I can't help think how beautiful it looks and how happy i feel just by looking it.

I guess there is a slight manufacturing defect in me! So be it :)

She is 52 cms long. Weighs 2.8 kgs and is AB+ve.

She does not respond to the name Aditi, because she is not yet aware that that’s her name.

She is 72 hours old.

And she is the best Father’s Day gift anyone can give my friend Anand Srinivasan. “The diameter of her head is 32 cms,” he beams, with the same intensity as a father whose child has topped the Board Exams.

In three days, Aditi has managed to wrap her father around her big-as-a-nail-little finger. And she is oblivious to it.

Something happens to grown men when they hold their first born for the first time. They become jelly on the inside. Till date there has been no tangible explanation for that jelly-likefeeling. “I don’t know how to explain it,” Anand gasps for words.

At 3.17 am she entered the world with a loud wail and within few minutes she was cleaned, wrapped and placed in her mesmerised father’s large hands. “At that moment my world changed,” says Anand.

“It’s a feeling that wraps you inside out. A hitherto unexperienced joy,” says Anand. “When I looked at my daughter for the first time it was as if all my troubles vanished or seemed inconsequential.”

Anand could easily be the poster child for New Dads. He’s hardly slept the last three days. He hasn’t done much in the last 72 hours other than stare at his daughter for long hours, carry her in his arms for the rest till someone in the family chide him to put her down and then he repeats the cycle all over again. “I have told him it is okay to step out once in a while,” says Anita. But Anand is like a boy in Harry Porter land.

Tender babies in the manly hands of fathers are like a concentrated ball of love. “Every time I hold her I think she is mine; my child; my love; my life,” says Anand.

During the photo-shoot as he cuddles his baby he coochie-coos, “I will make you 100 sovereigns of gold for your wedding.” His wife rolls her eyes in exasperation.

“I will teach you to play tennis. And we can go swimming,” he whispers loudly and his mother-in-law smiles benignly.

“Everything I do now is prefixed with thoughts of my daughter. It’s like I’m soaked in Aditi. Do you understand it?” he asks.

Frankly no. But certainly, my father would. For that matter, all new fathers would!

The word that popped in my head was: wall flower.

No matter how hard I tried to find a more appropriate word for `wall flower' nothing seemed an apt.

Wall flower refused to fade away in my head.

Fade away like the boy/man in the picture.

For fade away he did into the background.

I had been watching him for quite sometime.

He was watching me watch him, with a smile on his face.

A smile that quite didn't reach his eyes.

A smile that didn't vary in its length.

A length that was careful in not crossing over to joy.

A smile that expressed boredom, tolerance and indifference.

He was alive but not ALIVE at that moment.

All the time that I watched him he did not make a sale.

It did not bother him.

People hardly stopped by to look at the goods on sale.

It again did not bother him.

He just sat there listening to music.

With a half smile plastered on his face.

Watching the world go by, without actually being in it.

It didn't bother him a bit.

Oh, how I yearned to step into his mind for just a moment - for I believe the mind of a wall-flower is as interesting if not more....

You can always pick a newly-married from a crowd.
Glowing face. Smiling eyes. Flying feet. And there is a certain light that shines from within.
Happiness is written all over.
An happiness that is so contagious that even your face stretches into a smile, unconsciously, at this absolute but happy stranger.
And you say a small prayer for her joy to last forever.
Though there is a little voice in your head that whispers -`wake up you fool, that's not going to be the case'.

But some might prove the `evil-whisperer-in-your-head' wrong and get lucky. They have a joyful marriage, but the degree of happiness and its quality changes over a period of time.

Marriage and married couples are an enigma to me.

Sometimes when I hear about couples who have been happily married for 60 or 80 years I wonder, `Oh my God, that is a life time.'
I wonder, what is it like to be married to someone for more than half your life time?
To have a friend, a companion walk with you almost all your life?
To have someone who completes your sentences and thoughts and who knows your every move?
To spend day in and day out with one person who loves you and whom you love?
I guess it must be wonderful i.e. if there is enough love and laughter to fuel the marriage.
Otherwise........I dread to even think about it.

DAY 165

I watched this little girl (in the foreground) for a very long time.

She didn't understand the significance of what the elders around her were doing.

They were lighting candles to the Almighty seeking favors or thanking Him for the blessings received. Some believed in lighting candles because that is what "you are supposed to do" (my friend) "it is a good thing" (another friend who was unable to explain why it was a good thing) "my parents used to do it", so on and so forth.

The kid watched them all. Holding a couple of candles in her own hand (which was thrust into her hands by some elder in her family), not knowing what to do with it or what the ritual of lighting the candles signified.

She was just watching them, observing them, without judging - and then following the adults around her.

And enjoying every bit of it. Curious about it all. Happy to be doing something new and different from what she usually did in her life. And reveling in the smells, sounds, voices and vibrations around her.

I am sure, not for a moment, did God, religion, good, bad, sin, bribery, receiving favors or blessings, different gods blah, blah, blah, cross her mind. Not for a moment. Instead, she was just soaking it all up, appreciating the new experience and enjoying it to the core. And that beat all devotions and forms of worship and surrender to the Creator usually exhibited by adults.

We were all children once upon a time? What happened to us?

DAY 164

There comes a time in all our lives when we bid good-bye to the ones whom we thought will be with us till the end of the journey.

You bid adieu without much fanfare. The farewell is subtle and silent.Sometimes there are no words spoken. It's just a feeling. A feeling of understanding that from now on you will walk your own paths. Not together. But alone. If life allows the paths might converge, briefly, but the twain shall never meet and walk a single path ever again.

Though you see the moment in your minds eye long before it actually happens, you turn a blind eye. You keep putting off the inevitable. In the process you prolong your pain. You stagnate. You suffocate. You kill yourself. And so does the other.

So when the time comes it is better to remember the wonderful time together and let go. For you life was and is enriched by the presence of the other.

In life,very rarely, people walk with you till the end of the journey.
That is the nature of life.

Life is meant to be walked with many, not just one.
Because the paths are broad.
Paths meant to accommodate many co-travelers.
If it is just one that you want to walk with till the end then the path will be narrow.

Narrow has no room for expansion.
No expansion. No change.
No change. No growth.
No growth. No joy.
No joy. No life.

What is life, without life?

Day 163

This photograph was taken outside a temple.

And this image is dedicated to all those who worry about our culture and traditions being eroded by the west or anything that is non-Indian.

The pic says it all.

One culture can never be annihilated by another. Cultures do not dissolve, they co-exist. Cultures do not threaten each other, they complement.

I know there will be many who will disagree with me. And I don't blame them one bit. Because on the surface it seems like cultures are always at loggerheads and that the new and alien are taking over the old and familiar. But that is nothing but deceptive trait. For that is the nature of evolution.

Cultures are never stagnant, they evolve as humans evolve and in the process traditions (which I think are tools of cultures) get modified or dropped or retained. But the foundational-culture as I call it, will remain, forever.

DAY 162

The mind wanders.
To far of places.
Some I have heard of.
Some I haven't.
But none I have seen.

It is a sensation
It is a feeling
in the depths of my being
a knowing that
I have been
to these places
some that I have heard of
some that I have not
and none, I have seen.

It seems the soul,
has traversed
great distances;
a million years,
and gathered in its folds
experiences of far and beyond
of people and places
some that I have heard of
some that I have not
and none, I have seen.

Like a hunter
like a gatherer
I hunt
and gather
many lives of me
lived in years gone by
lived in far of places
some that I have heard of
some that I have not
and none, I have seen.

So who is to say that I was not here when the Universe was created
It's just that I have a bad memory.
But the soul remembers.
It's just that I have not yet mastered the language of the soul.
When I do is when I will understand completely
about my journey
to the places that I have been
some that I have heard of
some that I have not
and none, I have seen
in this life.

DAY 161

This is definitely going to make it to my list of `Fav pics of mom'.

Both of us were goofing around one morning before I set out to work.

It is her habit to bask in the early morning sun for at least 20 mts. Good for the bones, says the family doc. And mom is very disciplined about her routine. (I don't have that in me - discipline to me sounds like an occasionally-available-fruit).

This was taken in the balcony of our house where she usually communes with the sun.

Just like all moms of this world, my mother too has lived quite a bit of life. If you ask me I'd say the scale is tipped more on the hardship-side than easy-living. The lines on her face are her scars of victory over life.

And as I looked at her I realized her smile and laughter did come from somewhere deep within her. Resonating through her soul. Proof enough, no matter what, one can always laugh -truly. It's just a matter of knowing, no hardship lasts forever. And one can never truly forget how to be happy and how to smile.

A lesson to remember when your monkey mind tells you - that's it, I am never going to find happiness again, or I will never be able to truly laugh again because of what happened in my life.

That's a big fat lie.

Human beings can never forget to laugh. What is yours will always be yours.

DAY 160

(I was unable to post any pics for the last seven days due to technical snags - my comp gave up on me. However, I shot everyday and wrote everyday and realized that it's become a habit now; a part of who I am. Continuing where I left...)

This picture was taken at a traffic junction. I was on my way to an official meeting when, as usual, I was caught in the middle of a horrendous traffic jam. There is nothing much you can do, sitting inside your car, surrounded by a sea of still vehicles. I usually listen to music, read magazines (yes, in Bangalore you can actually get enough time to flip through magazines at traffic junctions) or take photos.

In front of me was this van carrying cooking-gas cylinders. And sitting amidst those cylinders was this boy. He was as still as everything around him.

There was nothing alive about him except for his unconsciously beating heart.

I was trying to get a feel of the world inside his head, but his eyes were shut to the world, though open in a mechanical way. He seemed to have locked the door that would've given the world a glimpse of his soul.

It was an extremely disturbing image.

One so young, with so much life ahead, but already dead.

Will he be a dead man walking for the rest of his life? I hope not!

DAY 159

When the world around presses in
man yearns to go back into the womb;
flee back to a childhood
filled with dreams galore
and worries nay.

How strange is the human mind
that yearns to leap into adulthood
when in the arms of childhood.
But when the child becomes the father
and the world around him begins to crumble
he wants to roll-back time.

What man wouldn't give years of his life
to live that life again
if only for a moment
a life,
when worries were nothing more than whispers
when fears were about fairytale monsters
and nothing in the world
that couldn't be handled
from inside the circle
of the parents' arms.

A life filled with dreams galore
and worries nay!

Day 158

I cannot slay my twin
who is my own
but kill i must
to live i must

I cannot slay my twin
'cause she is my moat
but kill i must
to live i must

I cannot slay my twin
keeper of my secrets
but kill i must
to live i must

I cannot slay my twin
my companion in lonely cliffs
but kill i must
to live i must

I cannot slay my twin
my army against the world
but kill i must
to live i must

I cannot slay my twin
'cause it makes the pores of my skin weep blood
but kill i must
to live i must

To live I must
Kill I must
for she is EGO

And when she is slayed
I'll stand tall
I'll stand beautiful
I'll stand calm
I'll stand precious
I'll stand
on my own
without the I.

DAY 157

There is this mechanic who cheats me regularly.
He knows I know.
I know he knows that I know.

Ideally, I should not be going to him.
Yet I do.

Because it is convenient.

Every time there's been a puncture, ironically, he's been close by. It was more convenient for me to let him handle it than take the trouble of going to my regular mechanic who lives far away.

I leave the car with the cheat and rush to work
Only to come back in the evening to hear him say
"Tube gone. Replaced tube. Rs.370."

This scene has replayed itself many times over in the last five months.
A new tube cannot have such dismal life, right?

I go to him again, not because he's convincing.
I go to him again, because of convenience.

How we short change ourselves at the altar of convenience?

We do not explore our full potential -because it is not convenient.
We do not live life to the fullest - because it is not convenient.
We do not walk the extra mile - because it is not convenient.

We short change ourselves -all the time. In spite of being aware of cheating ourselves in the bargain!