sometimes when you see too much of pain...pain and suffering that makes no sense... you begin to wonder at what sort of God is God... and then perhaps whether there is God at all...

But that may be when you see others sufferring... when there is too much suffering, too much unreasonalbleness in this world..then the only thing that appears sensible is the belief in God.

and then you see so many people who have all that a God could have given them, and they are throwing their lives away...

The view from the window

Its winter time but i have the luxury of travelling in a hostel bus every morning. The tiny yellow bus with its windows shut cosily and packed lunch from the mess. 'Jhantak' bollywood music playing, each girl lying spread out on one whole seat.
Its a insulated beautiful world for us...
As i look out of the window, the sights and images i pass appear so far off. See those people already standing in ques for sundry paper work;ther ragpicker who already has finished his first lap of collection. The begger is sitting on the pavement wrapped in a shawl, and a dog is snugly sleeping next to him. Even we are friends with dogs, but this comraderie had a different ring to it. It was as if they were both sharing their street life, on this cold morning.
The sun rays are getting filtered out throught the trees, i can almost smell the morning through the window... its like a world on mute, a film on mute... and when only one of your senses is operating youoften see what you may not otherwise have. So may cars...
So many students..all dressed differently... i have grown to like the campus. As i walk through it, discover short cuts to the nearest printout shop.
The girl sitting near my seat is knitting. She is from one of the North east states. We have so many north east students on this campus. They have given it a distinct life. The market is full of chinese, tibetan and thai food. The hostel has Korean movie screenings... They set the fashion trends, they cook their dishes on the hostel hot plate...
The conducter just easily jumped into our runnning bus...efficiency isIndia's middle name; yet it isn't.
I think i'll learn to knit from dadiji too. What we 'third world' people have as unique is this ability to make our own stuff and repair it... that's what facinates me about India, so much more than Mr. Mittal buying Arcelor...
Hmmm... so many thoughts..so many worlds. Why am i where i am...

Who is this
standing before me?

looking me right in the eye...
as if questioning me
my purpose in looking at her

she seems to think
she's pretty
holds herself so vainly
but why
does that now make me ashamed?

As if i have seen
that she's not as much
as she thinks
but why
does that now make me feel small?

I know her from before
quite well infact!
but what she is
still alludes me!

Its as if my fate
is supremely linked with hers
...suddenly i'm scared
what if she fails...?

I smile at her
she smiles back
looks like she too
is trying to figure me out.

Are we not all somewhere
strangers to each other...
a strangeness we cover
with conversation

All this while
we two looked on
silent...
& I wondered then,
do i really know
that person in the mirror?

march on! on!
why?
where to?
where? - nowhere that i know!!
(leaving out the tarot reader
who said ill meet my man this year)
why then?
for it supremely better then sitting!!
and in fact sitting's got fun only
when i know i have some important role in life to do.

musafir hoon yaron!

just coz we know something can't be ( at least necessarily) true, does'ne stop us from continuing to imagine it. And ought we not? for what's life without a 'prince charming' and without 'time travel'.
i travel to parallel universes, mutiple life-worlds, every time i flavour a book, a movie, a meal, a conversation. and all that while being embodied in my atomic density. but then the mind travels far and wide, and my body is but an expression of it. my body is what i experience it as - both with the body as the means of this experience and an end.
i am history. for dont i carry in the strands of what bioscience calls memory, the impressions of most that has happened to humanity? i am taught history - no, histories- all the time. every moment is a realisation of pre-determined ends in a world whose ends are far from pre-determined. i make my own history. as do u. and so we all make history.
and if we carry history in our times, must we not set out on time travels. for if i could not escape my world ( if there is anything that is definitely my world) and visit others, i wud definitely be a small person. hardly a person. and if i were actually physically transported to another time, (and hence another 'world' - note the fact that time is what seems to seperate one world from another...), i will observe its history through my own as well. To actually live that history i'll have to be born with it. i'll only end up with adjustment complexes.
But stationed in the 'here', i will, anytime and everytime, travel through time. For what else am i but the accuulation of all times - occured and to come.