Day 8: Life is made of small things...

Yes, life is a made of small things that are capable of giving big happiness. It is just a matter of realizing what these small things are and how you can achieve them.

Last year, my husband showed me a movie-'Bucket list'* . It is about two people who are ill and their lives coming to an end decide to make a list of the things they want to do before they die. The movie appealed to me and I thought one day I would make my bucket list. It is more than a year and my list is yet not ready. Today, I think the time has come and I feel passionate inside to make it. While thinking of all the possible things, I realize I do not want big things or big money in life but still these things may give me so much happiness. I think one's bucket list will always be incomplete till the time he is dying. Everyday with one or more realizations and experiences, there can be an addition to this list. My list for now goes like this:

• Take up the job I want. I think my list should start with acquiring the understanding of what kind of job I want to do.
• Learn one Indian classical dance and join a group/troop for some years.
• Take up the Masters of Arts in English Literature.
• Buy myself a 'red' Santro car.
• Be a terrificly confident car-driver.
• Read 'Ramayana' and learn most of the 'chaupayee' by heart.
• Learn a lot of bhajans and to be able to sing them beautifully with 'ras'.
  
• Buy myself a diamond ring.
• Learn skating and be able to skate confidently & beautifully on the Hippodrome Cote d'azur beach.
• Be a professor.
  

While I am writing (and feeling) this list, why I am thinking what is possible and what is not, today? If I have a wish, I should just see what I require to fulfill it and not analyze it now whether I would achieve it or not. That's what the whole point is. The bucket list enables us to see what we aim and wish in our lives, and when we achieve them we are sure to get some happiness. It equips us with some enthusiasm and determination to make something of ourselves, to make the life as we want it to be and not the other way round. For example, if I wish to climb the Mount Everest, I should think the possible ways to achieve it, starting from acquiring a good stamina.

Right now itself, I feel there is so much I want to do in my life that there is no single minute to waste. I can probably feel the happiness I will feel when I will tick out the things as done from this list. I will keep coming to this post if things are ticked out or there is more to add....

*http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0825232/

Day 7: Discipline- so important yet so difficult

I am realising it from so many many days and everyday so many times that life is all about discipline. It is a never ending process of growing and improving one self. Well, the wish to grow and improve should come from inside, but once it is there it is always there-dormant or active. Therefore, if the momentum, about which I talked about in my last post, is lost, I believe the wish, the craving to get it back still lies deep, most of the times may be sleeping somewhere sound.

If I have to grow, I must wake up my momentum in such a way that it keeps things rolling for me. All this has one key, that is discipline. One has to constantly keep on enforcing himself to do what needs or what must be done to improve, to grow and to feel what a meaningful life is. Yes, discipline lets an individual find the meaning of his life. Discipline makes available abundant amount of time to chart out one's life's plan. It gives so much time to introspect and look inside for strengths and weaknesses.

Nowadays, I am in constant search for discipline for myself. Everyday I spend it unlike the last day in order to achieve something better (even if it is efficiency) at the end of the day. I am determined to reach a point in my life where I can say, "yes, my life is in my control". I think for me, my discipline starts from disciplining my body. A man is often the slave of his senses. The more he surrenders, the more he is asked to surrender. Fat people go on getting fat because they can't control their temptations. A thief hardly stops stealing because he is so much into it. His mind is so much into it. A healthy mind is mostly the outcome of a healthy body. I need to be the master of my body, and not the other way round. It is so difficult. I think the people who have a strict diet or exercise regime would agree with me. Initially it is so difficult to get into that regime, each day, bringing oneself to do some yoga, exercise, eat healthy....all is so hard because I liked the words of my mother- "Aaj kaaya ko jitna kasht doge, utna hi tumhe voh aage sukh degi. Aur jitna aaj sukh doge, utna hi kasht kal milega". How true, but I am waiting....for a good day, when I will ample time to look after my body and my senses, when I won't have any responsibilities to take my time etc.....but dear, such a day will never come. When I know all, why don't I execute?????? I think, I will try again like an ant climbing the wall, and would definitely come back with a post saying 'yes I am succeeding!, yes I achieved it'.

I think, taking control of the body will enable a person to take control of his mind that's going to shape his life further. And that's what is the ultimate purpose of life, to live in a meaningful way.Success, growth, improvement, satisfaction and happiness all comes from a peaceful meaningful life, which is always a result of discipline.

My Puzzle

I have always believed and also felt, life is a challenge that keeps on challenging. The end of one struggle is often marked by the beginning of another. The struggle is intensified in absence of a goal, a dream that can be chased, a vision of yourself and a determination to run after something.

Where my struggle lies, is the question before me. Is it the goal or the determination? If I have the goal, where is the determination and if I have the determination, why is not there any goal?

There is a vision for my self which I would like to achieve but where is the tenacity to make that happen? What is that, that is stopping me to move, to work, to work hard and be something that I dream for myself? What is it that stops me from regaining myself what I was a few years back? Things do drift in life (once allowed to drift) and ofcourse with each passing day they become yet more difficult to get back in their natal form. But, the determination, the passion to chase and above all, the goal, the most important, can get things right in , and the drifted things to drift further.

Like the ant who makes numerous efforts to climb the wall, like the bird who makes its nest straw by straw, human life has to be no different owing to the fact they have much more potential in store. Still, the human life takes inspirations from these tiny yet wonderful creatures of God. Why I am not that ant and not that bird? That's the first question I need the answer of.

Life is like a puzzle for me nowadays. Well, I don't know if puzzle is the right word. For each jumbled up piece, I need an answer. After I have all the answers, hopefully my dream comes true and I will be free from my own guilts, complexes and inhibitions, because I dreamt, I thought, I worked and I achieved. The second question is do I have a plan to reach to the stars and the Moon I dream of. So, my next task is to make a detailed plan keeping in perspective the outcomes I want from it. One substep being making deadlines and toiling to attain them.

The third question and a probable diificult answer is to keep the things rolling. It is so critical and therefore so difficult. It requires all the hard work to stop oneself from falling in the trap of laziness and procrastination (after achieving a few results). Momentum, as in physics keep things in motion, same in life it is required to keep the results in place by moving the mind constantly towards persistence and hard work. My past experiences have made me sure of this one fact, momentum is so so important. It just can't be ignored or underestimated. The absence of it will mar any past success and just, the presence of it will make you do wonders, some of whom may be unthought too. Wow, I would like to be in that state....should be amazing !!!!

If I summarize the solution to solve my puzzle it would be decide on a goal or a dream (though dreams are always seen by heart and not decided upon by the mind...well, sometimes it can be different too!), make a plan and work for it keeping deadlines and an ant attitude. And keep the momentum, just never lose it. The presence of the word 'never' itself makes it so easy to lose it.

In this entire process, the fear of failure, the need to justify/defend and the state of doubt will always make the journey slow and ineffective. I have to be convinced about my dreams and the path that I chose to win them. Come what may, I am not going to move and I am not going to fall. Yes, I am going to be the ant, just once in my life and then would keep things rolling.

I am sure, that is what I can call 'life'.

Day 6: Pablo Neruda

I have always been in awe of some of the greatest poets and writers. Some have been appealing to me by their portrayal of emotions into poems and in the process sketching before my eyes a picture of these emotions. Some also have been quite 'heavy' for me, quite incomprehensible for me.

My favourites include Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda, Kamla Das, Rabindranath Tagore, Gulzar, Javed Akhtar and Sheila Gujral. Recently I ordered a book by Pablo Neruda where he writes poems about his love for sea. I am waiting for the book to arrive and experience what it would be to fall in love with the blue sea and the waves so much that he pens so much about it. Below is one of my favourite poems by Pablo:

The Saddest Poem
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.

"The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

Day 5: Poetry- My lost passion

RabindraNath Tagore said "Poetry is the sanctuary where the greatest truths of my life emerge". To me these words and their sounds and their meaning appear as my own. Yes, poetry is something that came to me while I was in 7th standard in school. I realized it was a medium that let me myself. I was not pretentious in these creations. They reflected pure me, away from all lies. If I was bad, it was in my poems. If I was sad or happy, my poems said that. They never pretended to be what I was not.

But as life progresses, I often think do the words mature and they start pretending? Or is it the heart that grows and fills itself with liking, dislikings, judgements and with maturity itself? Sometimes I wonder, is it the lose of innocence that has snatched the words from me? I am still searching for the answers. More than that, I am searching for the words themselves. One of my favourite poetry books is 'Silences' by Gulzar. It is a collection of his poems translated in English by Rina Singh. One of the poems (out of several) that touch my soul is 'the poet'. The poet says to his poetry to come to him and relieve him of the burden on his shoulders. (The burden here ofcourse does not imply the literal meaning). Same holds for me, I am waiting for my words to come to my soul and make me free of all the pretensions that I hold today.

One day....ya, very soon!

Day 4: Carrefour

I reached 'Carrefour' today in almost 2 hours as opposed to the 3 hours last week. Damn tired and head banging with all the products, I would like to post something small today. I just thought to study history of the hypermarket. Here it is (from wikipedia):

Carrefour S.A. is a French international hypermarket chain. Headquartered in Levallois-Perret, France, Carrefour is the largest hypermarket chain in the world in terms of size, the second largest retail group in the world in terms of revenue and third largest in profit after Wal-Mart and Tesco. Carrefour operates mainly in Europe, China, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and in the Dominican Republic, but also has shops in North Africa and other parts of Asia.

Carrefour means "crossroads" in French.

The first Carrefour store opened on June 3, 1957, in suburban Annecy near a crossroads (carrefour in French). The group was created by Marcel Fournier, Denis Defforey and Jacques Defforey and grew into a chain from this first sales outlet.The Carrefour group pioneered the concept of a hypermarket[dubious – discuss], a large supermarket and a department store under the same roof. They opened their first hypermarket June 15, 1963 in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, near Paris in France.

I think next time I visit Carrefour, I will take a few pictures and post them so that one can see its grandness. :-)

Day 3: The reality of reality shows- Is there any?

From last few weeks I was waiting desperately for one of my favourite shows to begin. It is 'Indian Idol'. I am just hooked to it. I am so mesmerised to see people singing so beautifully, I become happy to see so much talent and therefore, for me this show is a full entertainer. It makes me enjoy music.

Thousands of aspirants gather for the auditions and stay in the Sun & hunger just to get one chance. There are many who are hard to believe. They make such a drama of themselves that I can't just relate if they are speaking/enacting their true self. May be they just want to come on the television or meet the celebrity judges etc. I don't care about these people and simply ignore their drama before it gets to my head and I start disliking this aspect of the show.

I am touched by the lives of many talented young men and women who are there just to prove themselves if given one chance. They reach to the audition centres with a meagre money and have no air about their talent. Actually, in presence of real talent, there is no pretence and proud. The ones who are pretentious surely have something to make up for. I am amazed to see these people and listen their songs. I wait for such people on the show. These people sometimes make my heart heavy but at the same time I become so thankful to the God. Touchwood, I am in good shape and good form wrt health and I have no monetary problems. I get good food to eat everyday and good clothes to choose from. What about those who have to toil hard for all these? What is their journey just for a single day? I really wish such people get more n more chances and make some name & money for their families.

One way I am touched and the other way I am concerned too. These shows are they really 'real'? Momentary name n fame and a few opportunities, is this all it gives to the winner and the contestants? Ok, something is better than nothing and somehwere there should be a start, so it can be argued this is fine. But in the process the innocence of these people is lost. They come for auditions in simple get up and the make over on the show is so tremendous that I feel they have become so unreal. What happens to their minds backstage and background? What is the pressure? Do they become target of various publicity stunts? The few offers/opportunities (like singing in award functions??) don't they act as the bait for the fish?

I don't know what is the reality of these shows. Is the winner always the actual winner or is decided during the process based on the likings and dislikings, whims and fancies of the judges and the other related persons? What about the balance between opportunities and the innocence? I don't know the answers and probably we, the common man can never be able to get the answers or the right answers. So, I think we must sit and enjoy the talent (like I always do and pray for the right person to win and make himself a fulfilling life) and ........'let the music flow'.