I quote ...

Mark Twain's works. Excerpts from his travelogue 'Following the Equator' —

"This is indeed India; the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence...the country of a thousand nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition... the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe combined...Its marvels are its own; the patents cannot be infringed; imitations are not possible."

India is my country. I love my country. And I am proud of it.

Jai Hind!


~K.

Impressions - II

As a kid, I used to live in my imaginations. Well... I either haven't changed or haven't grown up. But then that's another story altogether.

Anyway, a part of my living in my imaginations was believing almost all the things that I read. Which ranged from the stories in my school textbooks to Archies comics. I used to believe those stories were real. Real enough to happen in my little world. To me. I used to imagine myself in those stories. And live a life where the nobody part of me was the lovely, the lover, the leader. It was so wonderful living a life like that that it was easy adopting those words and lines and ideas as my own.

One of them which knocked me over was - Songs never lie.

And thus, the sung word began to make a bigger impact than the one simply said or written. I guess that was where I made the choice between poetry and prose. Or between stories and songs. I used to believe in stories, and stories told me songs were true. So here I was. Now I believed in songs. Every one of them. Just the very fact that someone made the effort to get words to rhyme and sound poetic and dramatic; and then set them to music filled them with such magic and such beauty. Everyone from The Beatles to Simon & Garfunkel to The Carpenters to Billy Joel to Lobo and then Pink Floyd and The Doors came one by one and vindicated my belief. It was the best mix of truth and love and power and fear and beauty that I could ever ask for. It was the kind of things that commanded faith. And conviction. Much more than any God or religion could ever boast of.

And that's how I still am. Living my life in songs that other people wrote and sung. Finding my dreams and my truths and my power and my happiness in ideas and emotions of strange composers. Vain enough to relate every song that I listen to to some part of my life.
All because some stupid comic book said - Songs never lie.

And I say - Amen.


~K.

Black or White

It's funny how sometimes we either want everything or not have anything to do with at all. Like a binary system of 0's and 1's. Like a child who wants all or nothing. Anything in between is just... in between. And in between is not good enough. Reminds me of a Jim Morrison quote - "The highs and the lows are the most important points in one's life. Anything else... is just... in between."

I used to consider that a little childish.. a little immature.. maybe even a little self centered. Until I caught myself doing it. Not just once. But in almost every facet of my life.

I first noticed it in my guitar lessons. If I couldn't play the guitar the way I wanted to hear a guitar being played... then I wouldn't play it. Then again in my expressions... if I couldn't express myself as freely as (I thought) I could in English... then I wouldn't talk. (No wonder the article in Hindi has still not made its appearance here. I've a handicap!). What's more... remember that bicycle I have still not been able to ride... if I can't ride it the way I picture myself riding it... then let it remain parked forever.

And the scope doesn't stay limited to me. It moves into my social sphere as well. At work... if I can't be the best at whatever I am doing... then I don't want to do it. In my friendships and my relationships... if I can't be to a person what he or she is to me... I seem to withdraw.

All said and done, even though that is my first reaction to all such circumstances, there remain a few things on which I generally push on a little more than others. That social sphere stuff is among those few things. It takes more than just the first panic attack to make me give up. Maybe it's the fear of what I stand to lose. Or of having to start all over with nothing at all. And... well... singing is another. That's another thing for which I can accept a shade of gray.

And maybe that's what I need to realize. That Jim Morrison may have been right in what he said, but it's the in-betweens that let us relax between the excitement and the stress of highs and lows. That 0's and 1's may be able to define nearly everything, but fractions have their place too. That the perfect black and white picture has shades of gray blending beautifully from light to dark and vice versa.

Maybe I'll wake up to find that I already know this. And how to play the guitar really well. And how to ride the bicycle as well. That's a good thought to go to bed with.


Love, luck and hope -

~K.