Dream Catcher

You will live it out in time

But God forbid

That among the dreams of tomorrow

And the memories of yesterday

You forget the reality of today.

Tamizh

A gave me a birthday gift two weeks ago. Ah, I should probably say that the original gift that I was supposed to get dissolved into thin air on account of the fact that my visit to India was unprecendented and unexpected at the time of her arrival, and realizing that it was almost impossible that the two of us would meet during her trip back home, and calculating carefully that the postal department would make a killing on parcel registration almost nullifying the value of the gift, she had come to the conclusion that it would be better to give me this gift the next time we met, which could not be longer than another two years in time (I have simplified her original explanation which ran into seven and a half pages on standard A4 size paper - front and back).

So after a million whines of self-pity on having no birthday acknowledgement from someone I have known forever, she agreed to put together the one thing I really have wanted for a long while. A CD of tamil songs. Not that I've not heard tamil songs before, but not like this. The CD has pretty much blown me away - you could call it an obsession I guess.

On the other hand, I think whoever said mallu is tougher to learn than tamil knew nothing about either language! I'm a little language shy and A scares the hell out of me every time I try to speak two words. So a few days back I manage a Innu onnum pannala * and she's on it straight away -

"No! What Innu? You should say innukku!"

"But innu is passable no?" (hands a little sweaty)

"NO! It's not passable! And what onnum pannala? This is not your mallu - say innukku onnume pannala * !"

"OK..." (My voice is shaking and I can't say another word)

Hah, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If it's I it has to be pannitaen ^ , if it's he it has to be pannitaan ^ , if it's she it has to be pannitta ^ (oh, actually in very pure tamizh it has to be pannittaal ^, but in conversation pannitta is passable :P ) And elders you have to respect, OK? No enna pannara ** and all... it has to be neenga enna pannareenga ** !

Where does my paavam mallu compare to this where a simple Endhu cheyyuva ** ? would fit everyone and everything!!

But I'm having fun inspite of all the domination and humiliation. And for that, A, you're officially forgiven for everything ;)

* - Did nothing today

^ - various forms of did

** - What are you doing?

V1/16

The strands in your eyes
That color them wonderful
Stop me and steal my breath
Emeralds from mountains
Thrust towards the sky
Never revealing their depth

Today completes three years since I left Bangalore - then and now one of my cities of dreams. The place where I gained a little, lost a little, and still continue to learn - a lot. This is a dedication to everything that makes the city what it is - the traffic, the streets, the double meter auto rides, the restaurants, and more than anything else - the people who made my life the way it is now.

Lyrics from Goo Goo Dolls' I'll be

Colourblind

The balloon seller was filling up his balloons with helium. He had a daily ploy to attract his young customers. Just as children started coming out of school, he would grab a dozen balloons of various colours and let them loose into the air. It always worked. One hour's work in the evening and he would make enough money for a decent meal three times a day.

On one such day, just as he was about to pack up, he felt a little tug on the bottom of his shirt. Looking down, he saw a little kid looking up at him with his dark brown eyes. "Uncle, if you fill a black balloon with air and leave it, will it also fly like the others?" His small voice brimmed with innocence.

The balloon seller patted him on the head. "It doesn't matter what's on the outside, son. It's what's inside that counts."

***

I heard this story in church today. I've heard a lot of them before, with long winded parallels and implications that would finally give a moral science lesson. But this one surprised me. Like that one-in-a-hundred story that makes you smile, just because it is so simple its truth can't be denied.

And I suppose that however late, we all realize that it's true. It's what's inside that counts.

Mayflower

Strange but wonderful, that sometimes -

- in the loudest of places, you can find just the silence you wished for.
- it really is possible to sleep your worries away.
- music and lyrics can take off a day's weight.
- friends are the only reason you need to make a decision.
- you can miss someone even though you're hardly in touch.
- memories of yesterday make up for the expectations of today.
- you can dream about something you know won't come true.
- acceptance can be the simplest form of love.

Taglines

(Tagged by Pareltank and Angels, Stars 'n Dreams, but I should probably modify it to "ten honest beliefs" or something like it. And oops! could come up only with 7!)

And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
You can only take so much...
Walk on
***
There's a place where love
And feeling good don't ever cost a thing
And the pain you feel's a different kind of pain
... Home
***
If all of the stars have faded away
Just try not to worry you'll see them someday
Just take what you need and be on your way
And stop crying your heart out
***
We were moving mountains
Long before we knew we could
***
No matter what they tell you
No matter what they do
No matter what they teach you
What you believe is true
***
I tried so hard to set things right
But then years later when I looked back
The only things that turned out right
Were those I thought I'd just let be
***
I dream that love will never die
I dream that God will be forgiving

Onion Pakoda

"Yaar aaj to pakoda khaana hi padega!" Naeem, Nitin and I are sitting in our living room watching the rain pitter-patter outside. Rain. In my part of the world, that's rare. Nitin's the one who made the pakoda remark. That's how it is with him - most things are impulsive and based on parallels. This time it's the badiya mausam - ghar ki yaad - pakoda on a rainy evening parallel.

But this time everyone's enthusiastic. Somehow it does seem like a pakodi ka din. And so on the first weekend all of us have in almost a month, we decide to have a doing nothing - doing everything day. Naeem takes us in the morning to the local Pakistani Street which has the best aalo ke parathe I've had (prejudiced opinion because I'm in Saudi - but what the hell!).

But Nitin's right. The weather is awesome. The only time Saudi has actually looked romantic. The rain has cleared the air. The sky is dark but when you look out to the distance, you can almost touch the peace it casts on the ground. Sitting at the Corniche sea face, sipping at our coffees, we can see through to the Bahrain causeway miles away. Mornings have never been so lovely.

A drive and a movie later, we remember to end the day with what started it - Nitin's pakodi. At the little restaurant downtown, dabbing our onion pakodas in its red chutney and chana-dal, there're no worries of work, of people in distant lands, of money or relationships. Life feels momentarily peaceful.

Latika!

(Yep, finally saw it!)

My love for Slumdog isn't because it provides the world hope in it's time of recession, or because it tells you that you can reach great heights no matter what your history. It is in the simplicity of the love Jamal and Latika share. It doesn't matter how they were brought up, how they survived the dark days of their youth, how the Mumbai gang wars tore them apart - when they're finally together, the emotion they share is so natural, so easily innocent.

"Where are you?"
"I'm safe."
"I knew you'd be watching."

How many of us would accept a Ye hi hamari kismat hai justification at the end of a Bollywood movie? But Jamal's This is our destiny seems absolutely all right - because he makes us believe that even though it is written, you just cannot stop trying.

Right and Wrong

India's first golden globe. And perfectly dedicated to "the billion people of India". No one deserves it more. Rahman - you the man.

Sachin ranked #26. The ICC should suck on a lollipop while they redo that primary school formula they used.

My Window

Beside this window I spent nine years of my waking hours. Or minutes - being a last-minute-you-really-can't-afford-to-sleep-anymore kind of late riser I've never really got the time to enjoy a beautiful morning.

Every weekday at 5:45 my dad would wake me up when he left for work. Amma is probably the most optimistic person on the planet - all through these nine years I've asked her everyday to wake me up at 6 am. And she's done it whenever I asked her to - and continued it every 15 minutes till I finally wake up at half past seven, twenty minutes before the school bus is scheduled to pick me up at my doorstep. Most mornings are a blur to me. Three minutes dashing in and out of the shower, five minutes searching desparately for ironed clothes, twenty seconds in front of the dressing table trying to look presentable, one minute gulping down breakfast with no respect for what was served. To this day I consider it among my top achievements that in nine years, I can still count with one finger the number of times I've missed the school bus.

But the window is special. On those lazy mornings on the weekend when I'd just woken up, I'd prop my pillow against the head of the bed and stare for hours at the backyard. Somewhere along that timeframe there was a mulberry tree that grew just next to the wall. I remember the excitement when one day, after having learnt metamorphosis in biology, I saw among the deep red and the green of the tree, a fat green caterpillar. This was my obsession for weeks, till it finally disappeared leaving the thin shell of its cocoon behind.

On the days India played cricket and I got to stay home and watch, I always watched it by the window. The window was my little lucky charm for the Indian cricket team. The match would start off with the windows closed, and the room in darkness. And then it all depended on how we played. If we kept losing wickets or were getting trashed on the field, the two panels of the window would open by varying amounts - casting those "lucky shadows" about the room. The challenge was to get the shadows just right - like the stars being in place or something.

There are other memories. On the road behind our backyard, the neighbour taking his two cows out to the field. Somedays, a battered white Ambassador car visiting our backies. Other days, the crows pecking at all the ripe mangoes that always made Ammachy so angry. In the evenings, Amma watering her precious cinammon plants.

I no longer live or sleep by my window of nine years. The house has undergone a massive refurnishing since then, making it lots more beautiful and almost unrecognizable to someone seeing it after a while. But when I go visiting, this is my favourite room of all. The room with my window - because when I look out through it I can almost see the mulberry tree with its green and deep red mulberries, leaves half gnawed through by the caterpillar infestation. I guess that sometimes, all of us wish we can go back to a simpler time.

About Love

Never heard it said better.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

From 1 Corinthians 13

Rain and Shine

It's strange that when time moves so quickly, you look back at it and feel you've learnt a lot more than what those four months could have taught you. In fact most of them are not lessons, they're just realizations. And these realizations help you to deal with yourself more than any effort to set things right.

Somewhere along the way, we all see - that it's not the world that is unfair to you, it's not people, it's not yourself - that's just how it is. No one's life is perfect. That trying to feel happier is not the answer sometimes - it is to be happy with the way you feel. That friends you're hardly in touch with are as much a part of your life as those you always talk to. And that when you learn to let go of the past, the future looks a lot more peaceful.

What a girl can't do

Tagged by Pareltank

DB, Tunisian - My kid's six months old now. No, my husband doesn't work - my job's enough for the both of us now. Someone has to stay home and take care of our baby.

AE, Saudi - You're not getting married for another two years? That's too long, man! I'm getting married in two months - can't wait! No more cleaning rooms, ironing clothes, cooking meals - you get someone to do it all for you!

AR, Indian - Oh well, it's one thing whether your husband says it up to you whether you still want to work after getting married. I wouldn't want to get married to someone who feels its OK to give up my job and relocate where he is if it's OK with me. Doesn't that mean he pretty much doesn't care?

MB, Sudanese - It's really tough to manage women, my friend! Before they get married they seem accomodating and understanding. And then once you're married, suddenly there's this big career complex - about who's working and why there should be any sacrifice on either side. And then a kid comes along - and complicates matters even more!

FF, Omani - Nah, it's really not fair to ask her to quit her job and come here to Saudi. What's she going to do here? If I don't get a transfer out of here I'll probably just quit this job and take up a peaceful government job somewhere in my little town.

Notes:

1. I made this post the way it is to bring out one thing I realized - people's views on feminism are part of the life they've seen growing up, part of their culture and tradition. As cultures and traditions change, so do these views. However, I can never claim that one person's view is the entire country's view - they're not even a sample space. And while you have your own view, to some extent all of us are influenced by what people who are part of this sample space think.

2. All these lines are from real-life conversations - none of them are made up. :)

3. FF is now happily married and settled in Oman, running a private business with a few of his pals. His wife is a computer engineer.

Signs

I love the safety signs on a rigsite. It's also kind of impressive to visitors who think rigs don't really give a damn about safety. All that has changed.

This one at the safety induction tells you that time is important, but more important than time is safety:

There is no work so urgent or important that we can't take the time to do it safely.

I saw this one on a rig floor - encouraging you never to be shy when you have a question:

When in doubt - ASK. The only wrong question is the one you did not ask.

Of course some are great sources of entertainment - like this one which tells you to smoke only in designated areas.

Please do not smoke in here. Smoke is the waste left behind from your cigarette. You know what I leave behind after I drink water? How would you like it if I stood on top of you and pissed all over you? Respect my preference like I respect yours.

Of course no one really cares about swearing or cursing here. Why else would you see this in the main office?

How about a nice big cup of Shut the F*** Up? THINK before you say something stupid.

And then finally there is that sign which makes you think that inspite of all the safety they're promoting, there's always one sign too many. One that makes it seem like you're three years old and/or retarded. Like this one posted 35 feet above the ground on the rig floor:

Do not jump. Use stairs.

Starboard Sunrise

The golden yellow on the horizon
We spend a lifetime trying to get there
But why is it we fail to see
That it's everywhere on the ocean?

A little bit of green

Money is not everything in life. But it is most things. I remember telling A - The only people who say money is not important are the ones who have enough of it. Or the ones who've always had enough. For everyone else, we choose to believe it doesn't matter - because it is the right thing to believe. No one likes to sound materialistic.

But the truth is that in the satisfaction of being able to afford - your dream car, a birthday gift, an expensive dinner - you find your happiness.

Dreams

What you decide to do with your life doesn't have to be anyone else's business.

(Scene taken from The Pursuit of Happyness)

Lifesparks

Smile - even if it doesn't make you happy.
Weep - it's because you care so much.
Dream - it keeps your world alive.
Share - two hearts are stronger than one.

Lunar Depression

Eight days in Shaybah - tiring. Ten hours of sleep in the last four days, food eaten out of a paper plate in the middle of a million dirty tools, a rig floor covered in drilling mud. My clothes still smell a little like hydraulic oil. At least now I'm back at the airport and waiting for a flight back to town. Mujeeb and I are talking about the peace we're hoping to have over the next couple of days - "They're having Eid holidays in town man - peaceful. No waking up at 6 am, no sleepy morning meetings, no job preparations. Office opens only on Sunday." That's three days away.

On the taxi back home I have pleasant thoughts - wake up really late, a visit to town, a little pending shopping, cooking the next evening. Office - well, maybe for a couple of hours in between.

Life's different at 7 am the next morning. I wake up red-eyed to a ringing cell phone. Ali H. I curse loudly. I'm pretty sure I know why I've been woken up so early. And sure enough - another job, and leaving in a couple of hours. I'm PISSED. All in caps. Pissed through getting ready, through the short trip to office, through the three hour taxi ride to the heliport, through the half hour chopper ride offshore.

But then it ends there. Going down after checking in at the radio room, I join Thamer and Hussain who got there four days ago - guys who've been fasting almost fourteen hours a day, every day for the past one month, in preparation of their biggest festival of the year. Fasting - without food or water - when back in town, when at office, or when working on the rig floor in the middle of summer. And at the end the only thing they really want is to celebrate Eid with their families. They're not complaining though.

I don't prepare a tenth as much for Christmas. And yet I never learn to shut up. :)

Two Days Apart

Sometime in 1986

We're both at our grandparents place, digging tunnels in the pile of sand that's in the backyard. We started at opposite ends of the pile, and the objective is to make the tunnel pass across the pile so we can reach through it and shake hands with each other. "Oh mom was telling me that to be twins, you've got to be born on the same day." "What! That means we're not - " "Yeah! Can you believe that! She says you have to have the same parents also!" After a moment's disappointed silence, we get back to digging our cave.

Summer of 1989

"Yuck, throw properly for once! Look at where the ball has gone - go get it!" I pause at the edge of the stone steps, looking at the mess of mud, twigs, fallen leaves and fruits that lie heavily on the path ahead. I gingerly take a step forward and jump back with an Ouch! "I've got nothing on my feet!"

"Oh come on already!" In half a minute Matt has sprinted across the path and back in his bare feet, and we're playing Catch again.

Christmas Holidays 1994

"Hah! Gotcha!" Matt holds up the ball triumphantly. I'm as usual the horrible sportsman. "No! Didn't it bounce off the wall? I saw it!" Matt looks at me in disbelief. "You're joking, right?" He throws the ball up and catches it in his other hand. "No! You caught it off the first bounce!" (shamelessly persistent). Matt smiles. "Right." He shakes his head disapprovingly as he goes back to bowl.

April 2001

Both of us are sitting across a table in the hostel common room. "I hate this section in Math! How the hell do you find the distance of this line from the z-axis!" "Oh I can tell you that! But you tell me how to integrate this thing first."

As we're working on our sums, our friend walks in. "Hey, Nitin and I were thinking about starting another round of 28. You guys want to join us?" We look at each other and drop our pens.

So much for 3-D geometry.

Dec 31, 2007

"I'm thinking I should give the ticket checker guy some money. I need an AC seat!" "Dude, it's like a three hour ride - and it's not that hot!" We hug goodbye. Towards midnight Matt calls to tell me he's got back safely. "Oh and hey I got that AC seat halfway through the trip!" I shake my head and smile.

***

Given how infrequently we talk to each other, with Matt, I never really feel out of touch.