Pursuits

Today I shall write about my pursuits. It has been a turbulent life changing three years of my life, and I'm nearing the end of a major chapter of my life.

As going into the nitty gritty details of my personal struggles call for compromising the privacy of people and situations I shall be writing of the lessons learned and the new goals that I have churned out.

In six months time I shall be stamped with a doctorate. Yes, I'm a proud daughter and a prouder granddaughter. (Beams).

Dreams and love travel through time and worlds. The dreams of our ancestors are sometimes realized through us. PhD I believe, is my father's dream that I am taking to fruition.

It was a time of great changes in personal life. I've pushed my emotional limits, tested it multiple times, gotten hurt and stood tall. I've seen my goals take shape into reality, through hard work. What once seemed doubtful, I realized. Those once seemed superior became equals or inferiors. The people I saw with awe turned into what I can also be.

My grandfather went to rest with God and I'm sure he is going to be too proud of me when I get the degree. Yes I did it myself. In 3.5 years that is.

I had applied for a Masters course but my interview went so well that they pushed me for PhD. I got multiple professors calling me after the interview to join their labs. Choosing my guide was intuition, which later proved to work well for me.

I'm a person of free style. And I get plenty of freedom in my lab, with no time restrictions, no explicit problems to work on and the freedom to sing, dance, paint if the nature calls(winks).

I've mastered basic French. I've started a fitness regime. I've made awesome friends.

I've visited three countries - Qatar, France and USA to present my works at conferences there.

During these years I've taken the uncertainties in full swing. There was my family fervently pushing me for marriage and groom hunting. There were some who thought I would settle with MSc if I get set with a proposal. There were people who doubted me, those who tried to pull me from behind.

I had great moments from family. Many ways I knew how deep the love was. I have got amazing friends who supported me once instance at a time.

Choosing your battles

My dear love

Today I shall share with you the most wonderful and liberating truth that has dawned upon me over the past two years. Brace yourself, to soak in the rhapsodies of life wisdom that I'm going to flood you with.

We come across different types of people in our lives, of different ethnicity, educational, cultural backgrounds, different age groups - different everything. Many a time we have to interact with someone we are not used to. The best thing about the world is that it is full of people you do not know and are not used to. So when you interact with them, its like having an all new color added to your palette, or maybe a whole new instrument to your orchestra, that you do not know how to put use.

I shall take you to my imaginary world. A world where the colors and instruments have a conscience and have a soul. So I want to paint a beautiful picture. I have my palette ready and started painting , pouring my heart and soul into my creation. Now there are some colors I prefer not to use. I know they are ugly and if I touch my brush onto them the other parts of my painting would lose their innate aesthetic appeal and as a painter I do not want to risk it. But, my colors have a soul, a conscience, a voice. And that conscience is good enough for them to make unncessary clatter. The black knows, its ugly, its too much to fit into my painting. The taupe and grey know they have no place in my painting. But they sceam to get in. Try to find their place even if they make the painting look ugly.

They scream, shout, even beg to take themselves in. At times you see them fighting among themselves to get the better place in your painting. At times you see them getting a peek of your beautiful work in progress , re-evaluating themselves for a better canvas space, a better brush stroke.

There can be the black who is very adamant. It can even treat the painting as his own as he believes so , because the outline was made using black. And somehow the mighty black has got the know-it-all and I'm it all attitude plugged in its head that it wants its place withing my painting. It is very adamant and demanding, often fighting for a place. Who can convince the black that its place is on the outlines, outlines are where it fits well and not withing the painting, my painter sits disheveled.

There are others, like that grey, who cunningly jumped onto my brush while I was mixing from the red palette. There is the Russian violet bottle that tried to spill onto my painting. And there was this ugly fight that broke off between navy blue and crimson. Hell...., wait there you two!!

The painter me is kind of fed up. I see my beautiful sketch in the verge of being torn apart. I doubt if I can cover up that spilled ink. I wonder how I am going to fit that black and grey! Afterall, they are colors with souls, who wouldn't rest till they win their point. I contemplate on fighting with them, I know that the power of an artist's conscience always overpowers that of paints. But I know that the perfection conceived in my inner eye is unknown and unreachable to my paints and there is no use blaming them.

Battling with them is an option, I can win fair and square, but there it would leave me drained and uneasy once the fights are over. It would demand a rest period until my next creation and a sense of overwhelming creative fatigue that might as well out-pour into my other creative pursuits.

So as a seasoned artist, I choose to go with the conscience of my paints. To allow them into my canvas. To validate them, to make them feel important in their own pleasing ways. Now, what about that perfection, that beautiful sketch that you conceived within? I have my say, I paint well, I have filled the canvas myself, but with the difference that now I have included those battling paints as well. Well, I have included them like how they wanted to be included. I didn't force black to the outline, I let  it into the canvas so that it can feel peace within. I allowed the crimson to find its place with a strong brush stroke down the one-third of the canvas. Likewise, I found each of them a place in my painting.

Now, you see I battled none, but I won them all. What about my painting?

Well, I'm still painting. I tell you I paint beautifully and make excellent strokes, the best choice of colors with a profound sense of aesthetics. But now I know that the skill of an artist is not in painting his perfect imagery. It is about giving voice to the soul of every color  in her palette, who aspired for a worthy  place in her painting. And now, the painting has an unfathomable sense of inclusiveness and a great beauty that comes with it where all the colors feel satisfied within themselves, in their own stories, in their own tiny little worlds.

When a  master painter is painting, his creation can encompass them all, in perfect harmony with zero animosity. And that is what a novice must strive for. The pursuit of perfection comes not in the achievement of perfection that you conceive within yourself.

Perfection comes along the way when you learn to encompass what you don't know, what you don't want and what you are not yet aware of. Perfection is that ultimate love where you have befriended every color in your palette and have found each of them a righful place in their own might, within your canvass. Perfection is when you do not resent the black or grey rather appreciate the beauty of their personal stories and existence, including them in your canvas.

It takes greater character to tolerate imperfections than to resent them . And I tell you, these imperfections are your perceptions. Once the artist matures, he reaches that pinnacle of creativity where he touches that God self, that omniscient and omnipotent love that ensues from this paintings is what the artist contributes to the world.

The greater the love, the better his painting.

Lov and Hugs
mmeeee

Tip of the iceberg

Every successful person , man or woman has a story to tell.
Most of the time the stories are left unsaid. Many a times the changes could be so overwhelming that even the protagonist could be forgetting the intricacies of the life drama.In this busy world who has the time to connect the dots?

Well ,the reader might have made a guess that the post is a usual rant on how the life is materialistic , speedy etc..hey! Wait it isn't.
The subject of success has been in literature since time immemorial. From Veda Vyasa to Stephen Covey , everyone has had something to comment about success - habits , attitudes ,how to earn , how to spend, the so called secrets of success and what not. Even as I'm typing this,some pseudo intellectual might be penning down his version of tips on personality development. Chuck them all..bring home the point.
Hmm..success is not instantaneous. Its hardwork , failure ,patience, reward and happiness - in that order. Always. Trust me.
If you think you are successful without any failures , then it's someone else's sacrifice.
And that sacrifice would have stemmed out of love.
If you were not patient enough and left your endeavors mid-way , poor soul you have missed out on the miracle that was waiting for you at the end.

Reward is when that imminent happens. People would call you lucky, fortunate. The world would hail you for your success.Yeah , but remember just a few months back, when you failed,it was all between you and God( atheists can read it as inner voice).

The most important phase is hard work. Your potential must be polished. Passion alone has never taken anyone to glory. It takes effort. Passion is directly related to brainpower. When you ask people who made it to the top they might just tell you ' hey I was passionate about it '. ' its passion that makes all the difference '. My dear friend , beware of the catch here. It isnt passion that pulled the magic, instead it's the zeal that came out of it. Bill Gates worked for hours and hours in front of his workstation , coordinated with a lot of people,in his late teens and early twenties ,in order to become a multi billionaire in his forties. Break the myth my friend,nothing just happens with passion alone.
To succeed in love you need to taste failure once. To clear a test you might have to attempt more than once. To achieve your dream you will definitely have to reach out and do something that you haven't tried so far.Only when you deserve it truly , it will be yours.

Feel your existence. Feel emotions- the entire spectrum. Get hurt .Play ,fall down. Laugh , talk. Learn , think . Don't cage yourself in. Don't let anybody do that either. Be a free soul. Ultimately that's whats gonna make all the difference.

Life is like that. There's a lot of abstraction. When you look without insight its always the tip of the iceberg that you get to see. Hell man, nine tenths is hidden under the ocean out of your sight.

Quoting from one of my all time favorite movies " Jerry Maguire " ; this is how the narration goes at the climax -" Hey I don't have all the answers. In life,to be honest , I've failed as much as I've succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you my kind of successes."

The Sage and The Hippy

A lot can happen over a year!
Goodbye from college life
A promise-adding hope to life.
A new job new dimension to live
And an awesome new set of friends
Total colors!

Life may time and again pose you with two contradicting yet beautiful concepts:chasing and waiting.You dream,you work for realizing it and thereby chase your dream.You love,you trust ,you hope and then you wait for your dream to come true.( Waiting for December ;) ).

What I wish to share today are my ideas about planning ones own life. I wish to discuss on the effectiveness of sticking to your passions.Is scheming out your paths and living life,walking through the path that opens up through honest hard work and goodwill- Is it indeed the way to live?
Or is a life subjected to drifting under external influences and sailing through ,eventually losing ones self more beautiful?A life that could be hampered with vices,travel and hook-ups..-someone who categorically rebels the established social norms and expectations of being 'good'.
Which is more enriching?A roller coaster ride through the sweet and sour that the world has to offer or a sage like inner discipline and contentment that comes out of living a life fed by your passions and dreams?
I'm gonna untangle this twisted mass of thought-thread quite slowly now.
When a baby is born,a soul starts its journey afresh. When we were infants we never questioned fate,alas! fate as such was alien to us. We were innocent ,were carried by what came to us,what talked to us and what became of us. Like how the wise look at it,children are the true manifestations of God.By God I mean what's the truth,what is bound to happen which no wisdom (either learned or gained from experience ) can stop or control. Here I'm not just talking about those landmark events in your life.The events which you spit out when some random friend asks you 'how's life?'/'watsup?'. Instead,by God, I mean every single experience that touches your soul,causing the metamorphosis..Change is life.God is the love that flows to you from the fellow beings.God is the truth that you are living,your current sphere of existence and perception.

Let me put it like this.Each infant is given an empty basket.
As the  child develops consciousness about his/her capabilities,needs and relationships,he/she begins filling this basket. And this basket is named "I"-the ego.
(Here on I shall be using the generic pronoun he)
Slowly he discovers what he is capable of doing.He discovers love and hatred.He learns virtues and culture,debates and battles his identity.He discovers what makes him happy,what makes him cry.He identifies importance to people,friends, relatives etc. He finds out that he can mandate over certain things,and this is indeed the greatest power that a man/woman can have.
"Certain things"? Well,  at this point I would step back to the questions that I posed before.
The fundamental difference between the two styles of living that I posed in my questions is nothing but these "certain things". Let me explain.
Spiritual souls dwell into soul searching at an early age.They are disheartened at the meaninglessness of cover-ups,fake smiles and the evident fragility of the material world. They yearn for constancy, for truth.And from these endeavors they discover their identity. The identity of the soul of the world.To such a person,anything is possible. He has full control over his senses. His thought, speech and action are well synchronized. He becomes a master of his self. He is well aware of what fills his basket and is ready to get rid of them.A capacity for sacrifice is always there.There is a sense of universal brotherhood and openness to learn.
His rebel counterpart is the one who identifies himself with the things in the basket.He mandates over the material objects,in his own basket,which he has gathered and piled up in his course of life. His relationships,achievements, loss, revenge, fame and fake accolades all become his kingdom. He is unaware of his true being,and never tries to find it. He is lost but never understands that he is.This is because he's immersed in material pleasures and works and toils hard to keep his basket full. He's not ready to give anything away. His life shall be full of experiences and he dies living these experiences while not attaining the purpose of having experiences.

Only a disciplined soul can charter his life according to the voice from his inner self. He will work hard to achieve it.He knows the power of a true heart. He can let his reins go when he wishes to and hold them tight when need comes. Such a way of living is the one that immensely serves both the individual and the people around him. This way of living is the one that brings out the shine in you. All your talents, capabilities shall be wasted if it is not used with a sense of service-either to yourself, or others, or to certain cause.

And yeah, there ends the story of the sage and the hippy.

The right abode

People fortunate enough for a healthy life are mostly the ones fortunate of travel.Of moving around this beautiful earth , discovering differences,identifying themselves.
When the place of living changes,it changes not just the physical habitat,but the people, food, experiences and perceptions.Wherever you choose to go or wherever fate takes you to,there is a sphere of your existence that you savor each day.
The question is how long are you going to keep experiencing it?How much into future do you think this is gonna last.The answer , as far as I'm concerned lies in a little reverse psychology-it depends how lengthy you perceive each day to be.
I shall explain.
Do you find your day going too fast?Do you spend your time enjoying what you do,not really thinking about it,instead experiencing it each day,learning more every day? You have dreams as you progress,you have visions and you have that connection with yourself?If so,the habitat is just right for you.
Now,do u feel that the day is optimum?Like there are things that you want to do,you get to do them,but there are spaces left in the day where you don't have anything.It feels empty, a little dry but since the whole environment is cool and good ,it gets reflected on you as well.You are happy,happy to be in the place and surroundings that you are in but is not in a position to enjoy the bliss of existence.Well in simple  terms ,unable to vision?In that case,as soon as you finish what you have to do here,you must take the next leap.
Finally,do you feel suffocated? Like you don't even get to see the sun,and its only during the weekend that you breathe or feel like it?You don't know what you are doing-life has become so materialistic-like someone has transformed you into that toy in your childhood,that used to go gala for a few minutes depending on the winding it received(only that today for you its from 8 to 8!)?If so,there is only one word-Escape!!Escape before you forget yourself,escape before you lose your time and your life.
As you can see,I have identified my present to one of these.Hoping this little piece of writing would be helpful to the reader as well!
Cheers.
  

Welcoming a Turning Point

Each day is a new beginning.
A share of some new life waiting to be discovered.
The heat of campus recruitment process is high on air and like most of the people around I'm in the race as well.
Where you get placed shall determine the course of your life after college to a great extent.
At the worst case it could be a place where you are going to spend a major share of your life ahead.
Or just a temporary inn to live frog into better wonders and tastes of life.

Loss.Change.Hope

Before I attempt to scribble here,awake so late at night on a fool's day I would like to jot down that at this point in life I'm a kid.
A kid because I don't know the flavor of my choice from the myriad ones on offer.I need to get the reins tight but I haven't identified my horse yet.And like a kid I'm simply awestruck by the world around and is almost set to experiment and experience it.
It might be too funny to see that me past my childhood is re-living it.Some changes that happen in life without our permission cause us to travel the most wonderful paths in life,perhaps very different, rather distinct. And it is a series of such events that has brought me unto a self that is all new to myself -a world out there in front of me and I'm like a kid going to start my journey.

Start on a treasure hunt
through a new labyrinth.
 I see bloom here and there
Sweet fragrances come my way
As I step in,I like it! I say
But my heart goes numb
A weakness effected when
 my head doubts to hope.

The fairies circle around me.
They sing and fly making wonderful patterns!
Look! I say to myself,
Often sets out to touch one,
Try to get hold of one,
And sometimes I dance to the tune of that beautiful song
I walk forward
And then the tune changes,the fairies now have different faces.
Oh, I say.See that!I say

And soon I forget the lost tune
Smiles at the changes
(Hasn't the smile broadened a bit?)
Walk along-singing,dancing
With hopes of reaching my treasure.

My fairies lead me to thee
Where my soul can enjoy peace
And love immortal shall bequeath me
in its bosom so tender and dear!
And there I rest in the shelter of thy arms
and connect the dots through my labyrinth
Recount and wonder the flowers and thorns
the butterflies and fragrances I saw and felt

And yes! Those faces...the fairies!

I cant find them now.
They disappeared without me knowing
To share my smile and drink some wine, I find none
But still I smile and  remember them,with grace.
 .