Digging for Meaning

What makes one cling to fantasies so dearly? I can understand the impulse to run away from your life. But what color is your courage that pushes you beyond the limits of truth? To suspend reality and recede in thoughts. To forget and to belong. I just saw a docudrama ' catfish '. The movie chronicles online exchanges that is just about to evolve into a  relationship which takes a new turn due to uncovering of a deception. While I suspect that it might be scripted itself, it certainly strikes you with its reality. Our reality, that is only defined by the deceptions around us. How fragile are we? To need to run away from reality so often? So your partner vice is the cigarette, his' is grass (respect!), her's is booze, but everyone's hooked onto the internet the most. Kids slip deep under the blanket to escape reality. But when someone takes away the blanket, the kid has to face the real world. Game over. Grown ups shut down the world around and populate the wor...

I have 445 people on my friend's list on Facebook. 41 yet waiting on invite list. What does it mean? If I pass by these 486 people on the street, would we stop, genuinely smile and have a conversation? Would we really care when we would ask 'how are you?'. I know of these people, mostly. Some of them are really close friends. Some are people I would like to be friends to. But most others are only joined by an association. Mostly through my post graduate school, MICA. If I do a test of walking by all these 486 people, how many would I have to remove from the list? why should I be bothered by this number really? Well, primarily cause it confuses me. Is it right for me to see these photos? should i comment? how will they perceive my comment? With people you know closely enough there is no space for these questions. There are handful of people who I would turn to for any sort of help .There are a few more with whom I would like to share stuff.  The rest are mostly irrelevant...

I have 3 shoes. One formal, One sport shoe and another a mix of the two. The last one is particularly awesome, cause of its uniqueness. It looks like a formal shoe, but is as comfortable and flexible as a sport shoe. I bought it for my first job in Mumbai. I was newly rich and was expected to behave like one. I found this gem of pure black leather in a Colaba Causeway showroom. Quite a find. But its been almost two years now and the shoe shows its age. For all its awesomeness, its quite a weak shoe, to give out so early. I have stitched it, got new laces, and strengthened its sole. It doesn't look shiny anymore cause the leather has suffered from a few hostile trespasses. I think, like a man, things too should be allowed to carry their scars. Shiny scar-less men are just so... irrelevant.  Since childhood, I have been used to using things for long times. Clothes, equipments, shoes etc. I can't just throw things away cause they don't look as good anymore or they don't ...

It was a wonderful piece of art, the aghani cap. Lovely patterns and colors. It took a while before it registered with me that it was not just a thing to be stared at but something that could be intimately mine. Mine to wear, mine to flaunt. It sat snugly on top of me. I would force my eye balls right up, as much they could roll and I could see nothing. That kinda sucked, but then there are mirrors you see. I caught myself beaming like a lunatic with that thing on my head. I was 18. It was winter then, and hence no winter evening was to be wasted without the cap. But my gray/black/white T-shirts were so lacking in character that I had to dig a little deeper in my small wardrobe to find winter clothes to go with my afghani cap.Perhaps that is the only year in my life until now, when I was so particular about my clothes and made an effort to look sufficiently disheveled. But this exotic cap demanded me to give myself a little more respect. Thank god for mom, I had a decent sweater to p...

  A couple attending the mass outside the church in Hanoi

Bagsu, Vietnam Traveling is a kind promiscuity. Cheating your homeland, escaping to lovely bosoms of beautiful strange lands. Wild euphoria and sudden disenchantment. heady love and stinging loneliness. promises of coming back, and promises of giving back. Gokarn, Pushkar Traveling is an escape. Running to an unknown face, running away from the older known ones. Alone and with everybody. The warmth of unprejudiced smiles. An attempt to bear no mask. or to wear one of your choice, not somebody else's. A relief of not having to rebel every time you want to breath. Himalaya Treks, Ladakh Traveling is to return to your self son of the ground and the sky. The air is you.  insignificant. but integral. everywhere, a nomad. alive and about. Clear free.