How Accurate Is History?

When we started making a list of things we wanted to do on our London holiday, we put down 'Museums'. As I dug deeper into the details of the itinerary, I realized that there were scores of those in London city alone. We picked out half a dozen, assuming we could cover those off in a couple of days, three at most. Little did we realize that we'd need a couple of days per museum if we had to do them any justice. Anyway, we ended up doing about 4 museums in all and with a lot left to see, in as many days. We also drove a couple of hours out of London each day, for 3 days, covering places of importance in history. In addition, I spent a couple of days listening to stories of the past at the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, St. Paul's Cathedral, etc. England has so much history and many stories to tell.

The place is abundant in prehistoric monuments, the history ranging from royalty, gory battles to the mysteries of the stones of the Neolithic ancestors. The mummies preserved at the British Museum and the other art and artifacts of times gone by are fascinating, as you listen to the stories that go with each. I couldn't help but wonder how much of that was accurate. No doubt most of us believe, without question, that it is all true for we know not any better. It is like believing that the earth goes around the sun and moon around the earth, without actually seeing it for ourselves. Sure, there are some that have 'proven' it but I haven't and I believe it anyway. With conviction too. 

So, why do I wonder about history? It's because I live in a world of social networking, where something like Facebook is full of "facts" that are highly fabricated. The explanations recorded against these historical monuments or artifacts are assumptions or derivation based on something noted somewhere or probable cause of the current state of the artifact. Imagine if 500 years from now someone where to write history based on things they find from today's world. Would you be able to write an accurate account of my life based on the information on my Facebook account? Would you be able to judge me accurately based on my online friends? Are my friends on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn really my friends? How do you separate the acquaintances from the real friends? Surely not based on the frequency of contact we make online?

In fact, today's life has so much to do with appearances that if you raided my house and tried to write a description of my personality or lifestyle based on the items you find, you would struggle. You would be confused by the range of articles I own and hoard. There's the real me, there is a version of me that lasted for 10 days, there's the me I thought I was (based on something I thought I appreciated), there's the me I hope to be and so on. If you look in my bathroom shelf, you'll find products that will keep my hair in nice round curls and you'll find products that will straighten my hair and keep them that way for longer. So, do I like curly hair or straight? Which do I use more of? Truth is, some of those products have been sitting on the counter for over a year and one of these days I will trash them because I have forgotten what made me buy them. The truth is, I neither have the patience nor the time to make any effort towards my hair other than washing it once every couple of days. Yet, I own a shelf full of hair styling products.

Despite the cynicism, I do find myself thinking that there is a fair bit of truth in what historians claim. How they arrive at it, I do not have the knowledge of but I feel certain that they have their means to make accurate conjectures. They must see things and interpret signs that are not obvious to the normal eye. Like Sherlock Holmes, who can conclude that a man with minute strands of animal hair on the knees of his otherwise immaculate trousers has a dog (maybe he can name the pedigree too), left home in a disturbed state of mind (and not just in a hurry) and intends to engage Holmes in a story made of lies. He is accurate in his deductions and his trained eyes see things in a perspective some of us can only wish to have. In a way, I suppose historians are like detectives with a natural sense for understanding the way things could have been, by merely observing a dusty old object and trailing it's life cycle, based on the marks on it's body. 

What do historians have, to rely on, if they were to write about today in the future? Will they be able to successfully separate the real from the unreal? Will it be too hard or more interesting to work through the overload of information and make out fact from fiction? I used to go on holidays with a 36-photo reel of Kodak film and the studio would print me the 'best' of the lot. I was limited by the number of photos I could take, so I would be careful about recording what struck me as most important. Last I counted, I had over 3000 pictures from my London holiday. There is everything from the coloured skies to green plants, different angles of the mountains, cows and dozens of facial expressions my toddler makes everyday. Trying to produce a photo album for memories is a mountainous task for me. I don't envy the job of historians of the future. 

  

Maybe the scientists of the future will make devices to automatically cut through the hoard of data. Computers with AI that can choose what is required and trash what isn't, through elaborate data mining algorithms. Or better still, merge hundreds of similar pictures to create one clear view of reality. For all the insights science and history can provide us with, no one knows what the future holds for us. Who can predict what the possibilities are? 

Through The Glass Doors

I was 10 minutes early, so I had to wait in the reception area. Looking out the glass doors of the studio, I remembered a colleague complaining about the guys at the Pilates studio measuring their customers' waist and weight right there.

It looks so bad. Don't they realize that people on the road can see what's going on inside?

The truth is no, they don't. Most of the time, we don't realise that the people on the other side of the barrier are watching us. We know that they can see us but it's not on our minds as we go about our day. We pretend that everyone is getting on goes with their business, unmindful of what is happening on the other side of the wall. It's like, by putting up a wall, even a transparent glass one, we have created a barrier that allows us to behave differently to those on the other side and the other side won't notice. Unfortunately, reality is far from that.

People inside think those on the outside are hurrying through and walking past without looking in.

Oh they have better things to do. 

Hah! They are looking at you. They are looking, alright.

Those outside assume that they are not being watched because the insiders are busy with their stuff.

Why would they waste time looking out?

Oh no! They are watching you, as if you can't see them. In fact, those on the 'inside' side of the glass wall are always aware of what's going on in the 'outside' world.

Stand against a wall on the pavement and scratch your bum discreetly. You think no one's watching but I bet half a dozen folks from the buildings around you have seen you do that, through their windows or doors. Some of them may even remember your face.

Suppose you take the glass door away. Everyone becomes more aware. The guys at the Pilates studio, for instance, wouldn't be doing your measurements out where every passerby can stop to look. The pedestrians wouldn't blatantly stare or stop to watch.

What changed? It was a glass wall that disappeared. You could see everything before as you can now. Yet, people's behaviour is different when you remove the imaginary boundary separating two sets of people,

Chapter 8: Prepare for Arrival

I thought it looked like she was drawing, earlier. I was not sure, peripheral vision and all that. I can see more clearly now and I see a few block diagrams on the page she is currently writing on. With that, I will settle for studying not creative writing.

A funny thing occurred to me just now. The way I am taking pictures on my mobile every now and then, making notes on a sheet of paper, it might appear as if I am doing a recce of the place. I could be up to something illegal, marking out my route, for a later date when I will need to execute my plan. Luckily for me, I am on an aeroplane, flying miles above the earth. In the air, taking pictures and making notes are allowed. Any idea that I may be charting out the route by doing that is too far-fetched to be realistic. There is not much sense I can make, of the route, with the moving clouds and a beautiful sunset, can I?

I have hit the end of this page and I still have to conclude my writing. I am not done yet. What am I going to do? I really should stop writing and pick up the book I have brought with me, to read. It is called A Walk To Remember, by Nicholas Sparks. I have never read anything by this author before but the book has good reviews at the back. It promises to touch my heart too. 

Let me dig in my handbag and see if I have any scraps of paper I can use, to finish off my ramble-on-paper. 

I've found an email that I had printed off earlier in the day. It is the list of things a girlfriend has asked me to do, while I am in Melbourne. This will have to do.

The clouds outside are all grey now, and below us. The horizon is orange, yellow and a shade of blue or green. There are patches of the dark sky blue colour I saw earlier. 

I am on a ship, cruising along the waters, looking out the window of my cabin on the top floor.

I cannot seem to come up with an appropriate ending. Actually, I need to pee. I have been holding myself for a while now. As I said earlier, I could not find the toilets at the airport, then I could not go because the plane was stationery and then the chick came in and started writing right away and then I waited for her to take a break, which she did not... and there is all that coke I have been drinking. That reminds me. My teachers insisted that I should not use too many 'AND's in a single sentence. They said that made the sentence too long and the reader could lose track of all the things that happened from start to end. My sentences tended to be long, even back then, joined by a whole lot of 'AND's. I may have kicked the habit but it crept in there for a little second, didn't it?

Anyway, I had better go soon. They will turn on the seatbelt signs any minute now and then I will have to wait till we land. I don't know that I can hold for that much longer. There will be a queue of people to get out and sometimes people can be so slow. No. I have to go now. 

My hands are hurting like hell. It is not just my fingers any more. My arms and elbows are hurting too. It has been really long since I last wrote. I have been writing for at least 2 hours. 

Okay. I have just been to the toilet and back. The girl, Elle, is quite pleasant. She was nice about having to get up to let me get out. She had her book, sheets, ipod and a few other things on her lap but she did not seem to mind. Her voice sounds very cheerful. She said something to me when I mumbled an apology about making her get up. She also has common sense. She did not buckle up or pull the tray down till I returned. I think I really like this girl. 

The trip to the toilet was an episode, on its own. A woman entered the loo, just before I reached it. She did not come out for a really long time. I was standing at the front of the plane, where every single person on the plane could possibly see me. After a couple of minutes, I started feeling self-conscious. I could not go back, so I just hid behind the metal wall that separates that part of the plane from the rest of the passenger area. The elderly couple in the front seat could still see me. I saw them looking at me once. Our eyes met and we both did not know whether to smile or not. We settled with a half-smile. That made me even more uncomfortable. 

After 5 long minutes, or more (it definitely felt more), my mind started filling with questions. "Did she die in there?" I thought to myself, willing her to come out. What if she had fainted in the toilet? How long should I wait before I raised an alarm? Do any one of the crew members know there is someone in there?

I heard a little girl's voice from inside the loo. Phew! She had a child with her. It made sense that she was taking her time, if she had a child in there. I had not noticed the child when she entered the loo but then, I was behind her on the narrow corridor between the seats. Another few minutes passed by and I began to wonder if she killed the child. Is that why she had taken the kid into the toilet? I could not hear any sounds inside and there were no signs of anyone getting out of the toilet. I nearly looked down to see if there was blood, flowing out from underneath the door. I kicked myself. I watch too many cop shows! Between the desperate need to pee and the various CSI shows I have been watching lately, my mind had lost the capacity to think straight. 

I turned to look at the things around me. There was not much. A little fridge, trash, something behind the curtains and the exit doors on either side of the plane. I peered to read the signs and markings on the doors. There were quite a few symbols marked on each door, indicating the mechanism to release the doors, in the event of an emergency. Mostly, I could not make out much other than turning a lever here and pushing a panel there. I was concentrating so hard I had the urge to try it out, to see if it worked. 

A fleeting thought passed my mind that moment, "What if I opened one of these doors and let a blast of air in, for a brief second?"

As soon as I thought that, I turned back to the toilet door. I really had to pee. I was going crazy here. What was I thinking? I would kill hundreds of people right there, as the aircraft veered out of control and crashed, thanks to one little whim of mine to open an emergency door while we were hundreds of kilometres up in the air. Bizarre things come to mind when the mind is unable to function properly, due to the strong need to expel bodily fluids. That is my defence. Thanks to all those episodes of Air Crash Investigations, at least I know what would happen. That means, I do not have the urge to actually open the door to find out. Hurray!

Does it seem like I watch too much television? 

To cut a long story short, the woman and her child came out of the bathroom, before I did anything that would everyone on the plane. I rushed in and locked myself inside. When the deed was done and I stepped out, someone was waiting at the door. The embarrassment never ends! Why did someone have to be waiting outside? Did I take a long time too?

I am back at my seat now. Elle is back to her writing. I should have been reading but I had to tell the story that I just finished, so here I am, scribbling away some more. I might as well fill up the remaining half of this page before I wind up. 

Elle just spoke to me! She is asking me if I want the lights turned on. I smiled and said no. She said it was nice to see someone other than her writing by hand, she does not see that often. We both agreed that handwriting was a great thing. I really like her. 

That short conversation answers a few questions. She has noticed that I am writing. She did not ask what I was writing about. Either she does not care or she has peeked at my sheets while I was away. No, that can't be. I am sure she is just being polite. It is not as if I asked her what she was writing, even though the question has been eating away at me since I first noticed her writing. 

While I was getting out of the seat, I saw the title of the book she has been referring to. It says something about Melbourne Design and has pictures of what could be the Melbourne CBD. I can't say whether she is from Melbourne or Brisbane or even from other part of the world. She does not have much luggage but I have learned that people check in their bags even on short trips. Maybe her trip is not short. I'll never know.

It is plain grey outside, like a road underneath us. The horizon is orange and gold. I am on a big truck, cruising along the road. Maybe it is a Volvo bus, cool and smooth.

The captain has just asked the cabin crew to "prepare for arrival". I can feel the aircraft lower altitude. My heart is racing. Did I mention how much I love take-off and landing? I am definitely going to stop writing now. I have reached the end of the paper, my arms are hurting, I need to put the tray back on and the flight has nearly ended. All good reasons to stop. 

It has been lovely to write. I enjoyed my flight, thank you very much.

Chapter 1: Commute & Conversations

It was a really long journey to the airport, taking over an hour by train, followed by 45 minutes by bus. Thankfully, the bus would drop me right at the airport. All I had to do was step through the door and get in line to pick up my boarding pass. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth going through this, in order to save a few bucks. In exchange for $20 - $30, I was using up 2 hours of my life, to get to the airport. In this instance, flying interstate would take me about the same time as the trip from the city to the airport.

I have always argued that I could read a book while I am on the train and bus, thus it was not a waste of time. I would get some R&R during my journey. Also, reading tends to make the journey seem short. All I had to do was sit there, with my nose in my book, and a little while later, I would arrive at the airport.

The flaw in my theory was that on this particular day, I could not read. I was very anxious. The airlines had stopped allowing online check-ins and insisted on closing the check-in counter 45 minutes prior to boarding time. This meant that I had to be at the airport, latest within an hour of boarding time. Making an allowance for delays and based on the train time tables, the entire journey from city to city (train, bus, flight plus all the wait times) was going to take me 6 hours! That was a really long time, even if I were reading a book. All for $30!

It was too late to change anything and I had to do what I had set out to do. Sitting in the train, unable to read, worried about a zillion things, including whether I would make it in time for check-in, whether the queue would be long, etc, I stared out of the window. I was not really looking at anything outside and there were a number of tunnels along the way, so I occasionally looked around me, inside the train.

At one station, as I watched people board the train, I saw a casually dressed girl, with a pleasant face, walk in. Her attire almost made her a non-entity but yet I had noticed her. I had picked her out of all those people who boarded the train and followed her trip from the door to her seat, with my eyes. In the next few seconds, I had forgotten about her and gone back to stressing about my trip and staring out the window. That was true, until I heard conversation in the carriage that was quiet until then. It was a rather loud male voice followed by a soft female voice.

A guy, seated opposite a girl at the front, was making conversation with her. She seemed to have been listening to music on her iPad and reading or playing but she looked up when he spoke. It was the same girl I had watched earlier. Apparently, the guy had received an iPad as a Christmas present and was excited about it. Soon, the conversation moved on from iPad to iPad games, to Christmas parties and various other events that happened across different states they had both visited over the last year.

It is amazing how a simple comment like, "I have an iPad too!" can turn into a long, incessant conversation. That is just what happened. Without realizing, I had been sucked into the scene that played before my eyes.

I must admit I love eavesdropping on other people's conversations in trains and buses. It keeps my mind occupied and I find it entertaining. Most of the time. So, here I was, listening to a conversation between a girl with a very pleasant face, and an equally pleasant demeanor, and a guy whose mind had not quite caught up with the rest of the body, age-wise. The conversation was rather interesting too. They probably knew I was listening, or were at least aware that one or more people in the train were, but they did not seem particularly bothered by it. A good thing too, that. From them, I heard about different kinds of music, the Big Day Out at the coast that I had read and wondered about, similar events in other parts of the world. I found out where the guy lived and the girl, who they lived with, where they were headed and why. All information that would mean nothing to me once I get off the train and head on my journey but made the journey pleasant, as conversations tend to do.

I did not miss my book for one minute of the journey. I did not even realize how long the train journey had been. As they both got off one station after another, the latter reaching his destination one stop before mine, the carriage got quieter. It hit me then that I still had another 45 minutes of a bus ride, to reach the airport. I figured I might have to read my book after all. Only, I was not particularly enthusiastic about it that afternoon and I did not. I chose to look out the window and get a feel of the route that I had taken so often in the past but never bothered to check out. It was not too bad. Maybe it was worth the trip, after all. I saved 30 bucks and had a new travel experience to write home about.

The End Of Another Year

The month of December has been rather exciting. There have been too many parties, too much food and far too many bottles. It culminated in two fabulous Christmas parties - one of Christmas Day and the other on Boxing Day. Then, everything went quiet. The silence was almost deafening. Two days of no real partying, no going out. In fact, the two days at work were stunningly quiet too. In reality, it was 3 work days before NYE but the third one did not count because it was an early pack-up and the first half might as well have been clearing out the desk for the long weekend coming up.

Things were quiet in terms of actual partying but there was a mad frenzy of planning going on for the next year. There were heaps of travel and events being lined up. Soon, there were one too many things in motion and I needed two month-a-page calendars to make the plans - one calendar listing the things we wanted to do, the other for plans that were locked in. As is wont to be when there are so many things happening at one place, there were overlaps of groups and dates. My mind was a madhouse to say the least. Adrenaline was running high. Very high. I could almost feel my feet just a bit above the ground.

In the melee that was on, I thought everyone had forgotten about NYE and it was going to be pretty much sitting at home, watching the Sydney fireworks, drinking by myself. Of course, there were some talks about the fireworks at South Bank but I have seen them last year and did not think I cared to do the same again.

Suddenly, on the third day, things picked up. Everything sprung to life! I woke up in the morning, assuming I would quietly chase away the old year and welcome the new one with nothing more than hugs & kisses from my family and close friends. By noon, I had found out that I was going to watching footy plus there were pre- and post-drinks on NYE. I had been "booked in". While they were at it, I had also been booked in for plans for the theatre event after NY. Whoa!! Hold it right there! One moment I was all over the place trying to work out plans and the next dates were blocked on my calendar. In a flash, I saw $$$ fly out of my bank account.

As I watched, I could see the first 5 months of my next year unfolding slowly. The mid-year plans were forming in the background.

If the world does not end, as some seem to think might do, it will be a great year to look forward to. Somewhere in the midst of the changing seasons and overbooked events, there will be time to read and write. There will be interesting work and kick-ass Krav Maga sessions. With luck, the year will turn out to be even better than the current one!

As I wind up, I feel the year slipping away. There is still a day and half to go but I am packing up at work. What I do now will be the last thing I do in the office. I am not sure what that last thing should be. I almost feel a sense of loss as the year wraps up. It has come sooner than I expected. I struggle to shut down my computer. It is that moment when the year is ending and the heart wants to hold on to that which has been, that which the heart already knows. For, who knows what the next year will bring? For, all that is certain is the hope for wonderful things. The promise to oneself, of great things to come and beautiful memories to build, before the coming year ends.

Clickety Click

Taking photographs when the sun is up and shining bright, is probably the easiest. An automatic point-and-shoot camera is all a photographer needs and even the worst ones can manage a few good pictures. Most amateurs prefer a sunny day to say, a cloudy or rainy one, for this reason. I have discovered that all of this is bullshit. Mostly, if not entirely.

Sunlight means shadows. Partial shadows are usually bad news. There are a handful of good pictures where half of the photograph ends up darker than the other. Most of the time, you either want the picture in light or you want the entire object inside the shadow. Sometimes, sunlight can be harsh. This is not easily noticed in an automatic point-and-shoot because the camera adjusts its settings, as required. Auto settings, however, are limiting. They are pre-programmed to go one way or the other, or another. A reasonably decent photograph might still need editing to adjust colour and contrast if the light was too harsh for the automatic settings. A sunny day with few or no clouds means a boring skyline. In other words, pictures should exclude as much of the skyline as possible. If the landscape around the object is not interesting enough, taking a good picture becomes a challenge. In other words, bright sunlight is not necessarily a photographer’s best friend.

I’m no photographer, let alone a good one. I carry a semi-automatic camera that I have used in auto-mode for most of the time that I’ve had it. The only settings I’ve used are the macro mode, scenery mode (which does not seem to work the way I want, most of the time) and the pre-set timer. I read the manual once and fixed the settings when someone had stuffed around with my camera and messed up the scenery mode badly. By fixed, I mean that I changed a few things randomly and took pictures till they stopped looking like a sheet of white. Since then, I’ve never trusted myself to use the camera in scenery mode. A fear lurks in my mind that I might take a picture in the mode only to later find that it doesn’t look like the real image.

A couple of weekends ago, I learnt a few things about what my camera is capable of doing. Being a semi-automatic, there are limitations but I liked learning that I could be a better photographer than my camera’s auto mode. The discovery of being able to change the aperture and shutter speed has spoilt the automatic mode for good, for me. When I switch to auto, I wonder if the camera is using the most optimum settings for what I want to achieve. My mind goes back to numerous photographs I’ve taken in the past that I’ve had to delete once I get home and load them on to my computer. ISO, focus and composition are terms I have never had to think about when I take pictures. How naïve of me!

Having a digital camera means I can take a few hundred pictures to come home and edit or trash as I please. I can delete pictures on the camera, to make more space, if I need to. When I think back to the days we bought a ‘roll’ for the camera before going on a holiday, I wonder how we did it. I would buy 1 roll (if I could convince mum/dad, we would get 2), which came in sizes of 25 pictures or 32, and try to fit out entire holiday into that. The worst part was waiting till the roll was completely used up, before we could take it to the studio for developing. This usually happened with the second roll. After scrimping and trying to save for the best pictures, you inevitably end up with an unfinished roll. Then, it was a few days of waiting – sometimes as long as a fortnight or more – during which we would hope that the pictures were not shaken or distorted. We had the option of selecting ALL or GOOD on the order form, to indicate whether we wanted all the photos or the good prints only. I always worried that if I marked GOOD, the photographer might not print something that is important to me if he regards it as poor print.

The digital cameras improved photography without improving anybody’s skills by much. It provided the option of taking a number of pictures and selecting the best of the lot. A number of pictures mean various compositions. Somewhere among those hundreds of pictures, there will be a few that followed the rule of third and we end up with a pleasing image. That is how some of us with automatic cameras can still manage to click a few shots that our friends can ‘Like’ on Facebook and drool over. Over time, if the count of pictures with the ‘Like’ increases, we feel like we’re good photographers. Or atleast we attempt to become better ones, to keep the ‘Like’ going.

So, really, Facebook makes us better photographers. Eh? Of course I’m kidding! I’m just a wanderer, lacking photography skills, trying to write a piece on photography. It appears that I have wandered along a couple of roads with the writing too. When the realization of that hits, I know it’s time to put the cap back on the pen!

Wander & Wonder

What do you like to do when you are in a new place? Are you there as a traveller or a tourist? A tourist is there for pleasure and just that. The experience is what life has inevitably thrown at the tourist. A traveller, on the other hand, is there first for the experience - the reason for arrival may be any, even not self-induced. A tourist fits into the realm of a definition of a traveller but not the other way round.

Having heard one too many times about quiet holidays and stinky crowds, I was quite surprised to meet a vacationer who loved to see cities - the bigger the better. It cleared a mental block, the myth that everyone on holiday is running from city life. He insisted that cities did not necessarily mean crowds. He visited places during the off-season, thereby avoiding the swarm. 

As I trawl through scores of travelogues, I notice the subtle differences in preferences. From a broad view of classifying travellers as tourists and travellers, then further as those who like to do touristy things or not or a bit of both, now I find that the list can be endless. The choices available to a traveller are far too many and permutations of those selections belie any earlier belief that one travelogue can cater to all. 

Why did you make the trip? How did you make the trip? What kind of places do you like to stay at? What do you like to see and do? Who do you like to go with? Do you like it planned or spur-of-the-moment? Long or short duration? How do you like to commute once there? How do you plan your budget? 

Give it a shot, try answering those questions. You will realize that for each question you answered, there are a subset of questions that follow. As those are answered, there are further subsets. You tick off multiple answers, for the sake of flexibility, and find yourself presented with a subset for the areas shaded with multiple colours (picture Venn Diagrams). What's more? That was not even the exhaustive list of questions, merely the ones off the top of my head.

As this realization struck, another questions jumped out at me. How do travel-writers write those guides that get so popular, without being too generic? Turns out that rule #1 of travel writing is finding different angles. Apparently, you should be able to find atleast 20 that are unique and worthy. Then you pick your best few angles and write a few pieces. Some sell, some don't. And you thought travel writing was easy? All you had to do was vomit your trip details on a page and clap the dust off your palms? There is an eye-opener.

All this is just what I have gleamed in 10 months and 4 countries of travelling. A little voice in my head says to me that there will be a lot more clearing mental blocks and sponging off dark spots before I am able to absorb enough to give some back. Disheartening but challenging. As the Aussies say, I will "see how I go".

Oh!

The little fellow's eyes opened wide as saucers when he saw it parked outside the door. He smiled and ran to hug his parents. He turned 5 at the stroke of midnight last night, while he was busy dreaming of riding and falling, bruises all over his limbs that he scarce noticed.

Is that bike for me, daddy?

She clapped the back of her palm against her mouth to stop the noise that had emerged from her throat. It was the ugliest beast she had ever seen. Before she could blink, it spat on her face and she heard laughter. She opened her eyes. Her brother stood at the foot of her bed, a bucket in hand, clutching his stomach and laughing. Her face, hair and clothes were wet. So was her bed.

I wonder if that's water or wee!

Oh for joy and Oh for fear

Oh for surprise when it's here

Oh I remembered, Oh I realize

Oh it is for every kind of surprise

Understanding

He stepped inside. It was an empty room with white walls. The walls were so white that there was no need for light even in the darkest hour of the night. As he got used to the glare, he noticed a box at the far end of the room. It was hard to tell how far, squinting against the brightness as he was. He walked towards it & stopped inches before he reached it.

It's beautiful!

It was an old trunk made of wood, unevenly black and brown in colour, with patches of green. There was nothing unique about it. Lying there, it looked beautiful in it's pristine surroundings. It made the whiteness seem less harsh. 

He had never understood why people paid a lot of money for the old stuff his father sold - 'Antiques'. Standing there in the illuminance of a hundred thousand lux in all probability, he suddenly understood. He looked around him and saw nothing. Yet he saw. 

Is this what's called enlightenment? 

The radiance, he likened to a world of glamour & glitz. Antiques to the trunk, a shade of ugly reality that blots out the excessiveness in a fancy world. 

The value of a thing lies in it's surroundings.

Smile An Everlasting Smile

I heard the happiness in your laugh and your excitement. You sounded like a child. The word that came to mind was 'glee'. The term 'pure joy' made sense. I smiled. It came naturally. 

Mary J. Waldrip said, "A laugh is a smile that bursts". When you laughed, a speck from the burst hit me. 

I know what I said then. I heard it myself. I insisted you go easy. Maybe I was trying to sound worried. Maybe I was, a little bit. Despite all that, I was smiling. Almost laughing but preferring to hear you laugh instead. I remember it now and it makes me smile. 

There is a sound that warms me like a hug...

It was a beautiful morning, one that forced me to forget everything and just smile. No questions allowed, no reasons given, just smile. A deep moment of emptiness filling with cheer, as the lips curved lightly. 

I stepped outside. While I enjoyed the hamburger and coffee, I thought of you. I remembered the first time. You were here then. The memory felt real and made me smile. I walked down streets, all of which I had walked with you before. Then I reached some that we had not but I knew you would have loved it. My lips were not smiling but I felt a smile inside me as I strolled about. 

Yes, it is those memories and knowing they will realize once again that keeps my smile intact. 

The air was thick with anticipation. Emotions were at an 'almost happy' phase. Ready to erupt but holding back the smiles and laughter till we could be sure. The colour of tension was a multitude of shades flickering with an 'almost certain' sentiment. 

It was an awesome display of patience and grit, in my experience. The calm surrounding it was infectious. 

With the final swing of the ball in the air, you had us holding our breaths in a strange concoction of pleasure and disbelief! A befitting last ball sixer in response to theirs, something even the most hopeful could not have thought of asking. You gave a billion people a reason to smile in that instant. 

The applause will continue till the overwhelming sense of relief settles. You swept us off our feet and we are still reeling at the sensation. For now, we are unified by that smile you put in our days.

Aye Aye Captain, we are grateful... for spilling the lava of smiles over the country.

The perfect sleep is a long and deep one. When I awoke, I found a smile on my face. Just like that. Slowly, as I wound my way along the minutes, pleasant hours that had passed by pushed to the front of my mind. I sat down with a cuppa to enjoy them again. 

When I was finally stood up to move on, you sent me a text, "Please call". Unsure of what to read into it and unable to shake off the good climate inside me, I called you. The sound of two delighted voices tripping over each other had me gripped as you took off on a merry ride in the phone call. 

I confess, I love tumbling along from one reason to smile to another. 

"Smile, an everlasting smile / A smile can bring you near, to me..."

Is This For Real?

Some kids grow up believing Santa Claus exists. At some point in their lives they wake up to the horror that he doesn't. What about the other way around? Some of us grow up "knowing" Santa doesn't exist. What if we find out one day that he does? Ouch!

Those of us who don't believe in Santa also don't believe in some other things. Vampires. Unidentified Flying Objects. Pirates. Etcetera. At different variations, there's the athiests, the fanatics and so on. No matter what we may believe in or not, we all enjoy fairy tales and all sorts of fictitious stories. 

After spending about 30 years of not believing in the make-believe fantastical creatures that supposedly roam this world and firm in the knowledge that aliens are figments of imagination of science fiction writers, you begin to nod in agreement when you come across arguments that the people who claim such things exist are merely hallucinating. Or lying, of course! For such people, talk of UFO sightings and vampire attacks are rubbish.

When I first heard about pirates attacking ships in the waters at Somali, I was not sure whether I should believe it. Pirates? Really? I looked at my room-mate and said, "So, is it real? Pirates are for real?" Fortunately for me, she is a non-believer too and was equally surprised. Atleast, I didn't feel like I was asking a dumb question. Ever hear of the story of the sane king who had to drink water that drove people mad because all his subjects were and they thought he was off the rocker? I absolutely love Jack Sparrow and the Pirates Of The Caribbean, like many others. But... but... pirates? They're real? I thought they were a thing of the past - so long ago that it could almost be mythical. Like mythology. I wonder if a bunch of lazy buggers got inspired by JS and decided to start a new career. Anyway, there's a lot of noise in the news, the US army are killing them by the  dozen, people are dying (so says the media), so we might as well believe it. 

Move over terrorists, the pirates are here!

I couldn't help wonder if it will be vampires next. Somebody in the US saying they now have vampires. I mean, you do hear about tribes eating human beings - yummy too, supposedly. How long before somebody runs out screaming they've seen a vampire or been bitten by one or some such? 

I was still digesting the pirates stories and being sarcastic about vampires when the next one hits me. UFO sightings and alien kidnappings! No kidding! Seriously? Supposedly they're being sighted pretty often in US, Australia and some parts of Europe these days. The last I heard, they were being sighted for a while now (yeah yeah, I read a rather cynical/comical write-up about something along those lines, when in school) but it's happening often enough to alarm people now. What the beep? It's incredulous to hear news reports of pilots and air traffic control executives talk passionately about UFOs they saw and so-called kidnappings. A couple of nights ago, one of the news channels showed pictures where you could clearly (it wasn't clear to me, duh) see the kidnappings. Whoa! Stop right there! Who was kidnapped, do we know? They aren't even sure it's a human that was "kidnapped by an alien" or whether it was even a kidnapping. 

Now, that's going a bit far, don't you think? I'm not ready to believe this one yet. Alien attacks? Are you nuts? What do you think they're after? Seriously, those things really exist? 

Moving on. I was watching Bones on the telly last night. If you didn't know, it's one of those cop shows where Bones (specialist in bones, bravo) & her partner Booth solve murder cases. Shit like that. In this one, they were investigating the murder of a wedding planner and are talking to the bride who had visited the planner on the day of the murder. When they tell her that they found her DNA at the site, she squeals, "Really? These things exist? DNA and stuff?"

It sounded stupid, believe me. I bet the script was written for it to look like that. Stupid, pretty girl getting married. Bones & Booth are shocked she can be that dumb. It made me wonder about all the is-this-for-real-does-this-really-exist questions I've been asking of late. I am a non-believer and am not embarrassed that I do not believe in some of the ethereal stuff. I wonder if I would sound as stupid as the chick on the show, if I kept saying that everyday. The stuff in the media isn't helping, you know.

This made me think. We think it's dumb because we believe in the DNA. When I say 'believe', I mean we know it exists. Why is that? Have we seen it or felt it? We simply believe it because some scientist(s) claim to have seen it, gave us the diagrams we see in our text books, our teachers told us first and then we read about it, and reasons like that. The truth is that most of us know DNA as well as we know vampires. Not less not more. Yet we believe in the former and laugh off the latter. What decides what we want to believe? Clearly not experiencing it ourselves. We are willing to believe some stuff, yet we laugh at others who believe what we think are unreal.  

Do we disbelieve in things when somebody or the other raises the first question? As if, we are scared to doubt it until we know that someone else will back us up too. 

Say what you will... the world may be divided by country borders, races, religion, etc but one thing won't change. Irrespective of whether we like it or not, we are all homo sapiens. We are all alike on some level. We come from the same prototype. So much for wars and attacks, eh?

Quotes from Brida: Paulo Coelho

Choosing a path meant having to miss out on others. She had a whole life to live, and she was always thinking that, in the future, she might regret the choices she made now.
“I’m afraid of committing myself,” she thought to herself.
She wanted to follow all possible paths and so ended up following none. After her first romantic disappointment, she had never again given herself entirely. She feared pain, loss, and separation.
These things were inevitable on the path to love, and the only way of avoiding them was by deciding not to take that path at all.
In order not to suffer, you had to renounce love. It was like putting out your own eyes not to see the bad things in life.

Ever since time began, people have recognized their true Love by the light in their eyes.

“When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.”

“Don’t bother trying to explain your emotions. Live everything as intensely as you can and keep whatever you felt as a gift from God. The best way to destroy the bridge between the visible and invisible is by trying to explain your emotions.”

“But how will I know who my Soulmate is?” Brida felt that this was one of the most important questions she had ever asked in her life.
“By taking risks” she said to Brida. ‘ By risking failure, disappointment, disillusion, but never ceasing in you search for Love. As long as you keep looking, you will triumph in the end.”

Nothing is completely wrong. Even a broken watch is right twice a day.

Original blog is here.

2011: Manual For Conserving Paths (Paulo Coelho's Blog)

I'm in a rather pensive mood tonight. Three friends, one offended me and two others made me happy. I find myself clinging to the heartache rather than rejoice. Why does a negative emotion cut so deeply even as joy bubbles over? For one in such a state, I naturally turned to PC's rather reflective blogs. Suits the mindset, you see. The below is another of PC's writings. Click here to find the original.

1] The path begins with a crossroads. There you can stop and think what direction to follow. But don’t spend too much time thinking or you’ll never leave the spot. Reflect a lot on the choices that lie ahead, but once you have taken the first step, forget the crossroads for ever or else you will always torture yourself with the useless question: “did I take the right path?”

2] The path doesn’t last for ever. It is a blessing to travel the path for some time, but one day it will come to an end, so always be prepared to take leave of it at any moment. However enraptured you may be at certain landscapes, or scared whenever you have to make a great effort to go ahead, don’t get too used to anything. Neither to the hours of euphoria, nor to the endless days when everything seems so difficult and progress is so slow. Don’t forget that sooner or later an angel will appear and your journey will reach an end.

3] Honor your path. It was your choice, your decision, and just as you respect the ground you step on, that ground will respect your feet. Always do what is best to conserve and keep your path and it will do the same for you.

4] Be well equipped. Carry a small rake, a spade, a penknife. Understand that penknives are no use for dry leaves, and rakes are useless for herbs that are deep-rooted. Know also what tool to use at each moment. And take care of them, because they are your best allies.

5] The path goes forward and backward. At times you have to go back because something was lost, or else a message to be delivered was forgotten in your pocket. A well tended path enables you to go back without any great problems.

6] Take care of the path before you take care of what is around you. Attention and concentration are fundamental. Don’t be distracted by the dry leaves at the edges or by the way that others are looking after their paths. Use your energy to tend and conserve the ground that accepts your steps.

7] Be patient. Sometimes the same tasks have to be repeated, like tearing up weeds or closing holes that appear after unexpected rain. Don’t let that annoy you – that is part of the journey. Even though you are tired, even though certain tasks are repeated so often, be patient.

8] Paths cross. People can tell what the weather is like. Listen to advice, and make your own decisions. You alone are responsible for the path that was entrusted to you.

9] Nature follows its own rules. In this way, you have to be prepared for sudden changes in the fall, slippery ice in winter, the temptations of flowers in spring, thirst and showers in the summer. Make the most of each of these seasons, and don’t complain about their characteristics.

10] Make your path a mirror of yourself. By no means let yourself be influenced by the way that others care for their paths. You have your soul to listen to, and the birds to tell what your soul is saying. Let your stories be beautiful and pleasant to everything around you. Above all, let the stories that your soul tells during the journey be echoed at each and every second of the path.

11] Love your path. Without this, nothing makes any sense.

2010: Closing Cycle (Paulo Coelho's Blog)

A friend sent me this for New Years. Makes a rather interesting read. Click here for the original.


One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened.

You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister. Everyone is finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.

That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home.

Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them.

Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood.

Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.”

Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life.

Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.

Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

India From Outside

As one of thousands of people who leave their homes and travel to other countries to gain experience, knowledge and an improved lifestyle, I crossed the seas and arrived at this island. As is human nature to adapt to current surroundings, so did I. I went a step ahead and ensured I remain busy so I don't remember what I'm missing from where I arrived. I had so much fun being "a Roman in Rome" that it became my life. Occasionally, a moment like this came up.

suholla suholla 

10 mins into watching Karthik Calling Karthik. Hadn't realized I missed all this so much. I wanna go home! #fb

A friend responded to me on FB and said she felt the same way every time she watched a Bollywood movie. Last night, I stayed up till 1.30 watching a movie that I'd not only watched but knew was not all that great. 

It reminded me of another friend from US who is a big fan of Govinda, now a has-been celebrity in India. I had scoffed at her taste back in the earlier days saying that is what happened when you were away from home. 

Today, I can relate to it. I still won't chase Govinda but I can sit through a crappy Hindi movie and get nostalgic. 

It makes me wonder if this is why Karan Johar's movies are such big blockbusters abroad. Not all of them are good but he touches a nerve that non-residents can feel. Something they can relate to. It's like buying readymade "Nan bread" at Woolworths or Coles. Like thinking it is the closest thing I can get to eating naan at home, so I'll buy it and if it takes alright, I'll like it. Reality is that it is nothing like a real naan made in India. A mock-up of the original, if you will. 

Same applies to the localities of that place. KJo's movies have a sprinkling of India and culture but the locations are those outsiders can identify with. Then the drama and the "tradition" that might not really be India but what is believed outside of India. A smattering of all that and you have a hit Bollywood movie that might not work in India but will bring in moolah from outside. 

India from within India is so different from India from outside. A lot of people ask me about Indian culture and if this is how we do something. I try to explain to them that Indian culture is not one culture but many. South Indians are so different from North Indians. We speak over 25 languages and have almost as many cultures. If you dig deeper, there is the caste system and sub-caste system, where tradition varies within one culture. 

I have not met one expat who told me (s)he loved ragi mudde or rasam. Or even heard of it. India, for them, is "nan bread", "dahl", tandoori chicken, butter chicken, biryani, etc. All tailored to suit their exotic palates too. I wonder if we could tailor a mudde or rasam that way. Maybe not. Maybe that is why we can get that stuff only in India. 

Most of what is seen outside is the North Indian culture. More so Punjab, Mumbai and Delhi than any other. It's Indian culture alright but it's not the mirror to all of India. Just a peep through the window. Try explaining that to somehow who is baffled that every Indian can speak atleast 2 - 3 different languages. 

What You Don't Know Can't Hurt You

It's been a while. I've had atleast 3 blog ideas and content to write but never made the time. Some of us have to earn a living, no matter how much we detest the means to the goal. Then there's all the extra things one needs to do to fit into that horribly expensive dress one bought or the pair of shorts that one is hoping to buy. Many and such excuses later, here I am. Back to my beloved writing. Sneak-peeking at the time and wondering if I really want to do this. 

One of my excuses for not learning martial arts even as a kid was that if the rest of the world can survive without it, so could I. That was the excuses behind which hid the real excuses - I was scared of getting hurt. Then my husband brought me to this guy who teaches an Israeli form of martial arts called Krav Maga. Tim is an excellent instructor and before I knew it, I was hooked. Yes, I came home bruised and battered quite often. On Wednesday nights, I barely managed to take the train back home, half-blinded by weariness, sticky and beaten after nearly 3 hours of punching, kicking, choking and hammers. When we did the Zombie exercise in the end, I didn't even have to pretend to be a zombie on some days!

In short, I love Krav Maga. I love my classes, my instructor and all that's in it. When KMTA organized a workshop at the Gold Coast one weekend, I didn't need Tim's excellent salesmen skills to tell me I wanted to do it. The announcement said it was only for graded and grading students. I wasn't graded and wasn't doing so this term but I registered, paid and went for it anyway. It was simply superb. We practised KM in the park, in the bus, on rough ground, in the sand, in the water and on sand mounds, just about everywhere. At the end of the "beach workshop", when we returned to the bus to change (he's an excellent driver too, by the way), there was a crate of chilled beer waiting for us. Did I mention I have the best training instructor ever?

One of the things that stuck in my head from the training was Tim explaining to us the strategic location to be seated while flying or in public transport that would help us in getting the best defend-and-escape position. He said he always took the aisle seat in a flight. When he was done explaining, it was obvious that if we all took a flight out some place, the window seats would be empty in the plane and everyone would be fighting for aisle seats. I'm one of those people that loves a window seat in an air-plane. I love the view while taking off and landing. It's my favourite part of the entire flight. The very part that used to scare me when I first started flying. Due to this, I refused to be influenced to take an aisle seat. It is not like I'm really going to be attacked or anything, I said to myself. 

However, it did make me realize what I'd once thought of, as an excuse for not learning self-defence. One of the things you have to learn in a self-defence class is the various kinds of attacks possible. The knowledge is supposed to prepare you for any surprises and help you get away with least damage. It works. Your mind is sure to be alert once you know what to expect. The flip side is that you end up being on an always alert mode. In some ways it is good. Sometimes, it's plain strenuous to have to keep the brain on alert all the time. It's almost like running on adrenalin/battery power all day long (ask me, I know all about how that feels). 

Also, it restricts your freedom to do as you please. Imagine never being able to take a window seat in a flight or bus or train. Imagine being worried about people walking down the aisle while you're in a window seat, with a stranger in the aisle seat next to you. Imagine walking down the street, clutching your bag, prepared for any kind of attack, all the time. What are the chances that you will actually get attacked? That said, can you just relax and go lax, given that the chances are probably slim. I suppose not. What is the point of learning to be alert and defending yourself if you won't apply it. It only takes that once to cause irrevocable damage.

Yet, I can't help feeling that sometimes I am better off being ignorant. I'm better off not knowing about the bad things that could happen, so I can enjoy the good things in peace. Or maybe I should just learn to strike a balance. I'm glad I'm not a police officer or a doctor. Imagine living in an I-must-save-and-protect mode all the time! It's a bit much. I love my sleep, I wouldn't sacrifice it to save the world from a war. Maybe not. Who knows? We'll cross the bridge when we come to it. Time to head off to earn my living. Wish I didn't know that. I'm getting that feeling again. I'm better off not knowing. As they say, what you don't know...

Raise The Stakes

It is easy to see why gambling is addictive. It is a win-win situation for the house, may not be so for gambler but he returns nevertheless. 

If one is running through a streak of bad luck, there are two things that will bring him back. A hope that the luck will turn someday and one will at least make the money back that one has lost, makes one want to return. The reasoning that if it were the case for everyone, the casino would not be raking so much moolah is lost. If it is not the, forgive me, foolish and what also appears to be desperate at times, hope that makes one come back, it could be the frustration. The anger and despair at having lost all that money and the ego fight to keep going until one wins at least once. The "I will not give up" protests of the pride help keep the casino lights burning. 

Another kind of addiction exists, with the appearance of a wee lesser madness in the eye. That is when one returns to gamble ever so often but argues that one is only losing (playing) small values of money. The argument persists - what if one would win someday, one might make a fortune but if one does not, the losses are of slight consequence. This could, by far, be crazier than the rush kind of addictions for this could grow and be hard to shrug off. Like smoking. One is not a habitual smoker nor a chain smoker, yet one needs to smoke when stressed or when drinking or when doing something else. One can give it up but won't. How long before the will not turns into a can not? And one might not even notice the addiction creeping in. The losses at the tables will soon be budgeted into the monthly math.

Watching some of the tables last night, it was obvious that the tables are played so as to ensure that house always makes more money than the player. The simplest was the game of the wheel. The 1-1 payouts cost the casino nothing and the wheel had a 1 alternating every other number. The highest 47-1 was only present on the wheel once. What are the odds of that turning up? A gambler who wants to chance his luck on something so high might do so on small amounts, for he wins he makes a fortune but if he does not (which is more often the case), the casino keeps the money. 

The odd payout means nothing to the casino. Again, what are the chances of the winner putting all of that back on the table? Pretty high, no doubt. If one is willing to gamble one's hard-earned money at the table, one would be doubly willing to gamble a win that one freely obtained. If one lost that money, it does not matter for one did not lose one's own money. Neither did the casino. In short, when one loses, the casino makes money. When one wins, the casino gets it back more often than not.

A fellow that was with me at the Blackjack tables last night insisted that the Blackjack is definitely a lesser of a gamble than the others. "Because there is some decision-making involved", he argued. Admittedly there is a certain amount of decision to make. How long does one keep tapping for the next card? Who does one chance one's luck upon, for a perfect pair or a coloured pair? However, what does one base the decision upon? It is purely accident that one might win. It is a gamble. While it might give one a false sense of control over one's decisions or a feeling of more probabilities of a win, that is not necessarily so.

This is another age-old and classic examples of a mere tweaking of human psychology bringing the executor of the deed enormous profits. Another perfect sample of expensive addictions. Preying on one's weakness and feeding it just enough to reap benefits while giving one a sense of elation that cannot possibly exist. Such is life. As the saying goes, life is a gamble. Everyone loves it that way. Is that not why book-readers tend to love mystery thrillers and action stories which have all the rush that lead up to a supposedly unknown end. Everyone knows that the hero will win but it is the stakes that he plays along the way that keeps one reading. 

I went in merely to watch people gamble last night. If it were not for serious crunch of cash, I might have done so myself. The attraction is monstrous! The only language at the table is numbers. The deals are number, the coins are number, even the crisp notes one lays at the table are mere numbers. The $$ sign just blurs away from those little pieces of paper. One puts down a hundred, one gets coins that add up to a hundred and one lay the coins at numbers. Then one exchanges coins with the dealer, one loses some and wins some. It is all a stack of nothing but numbers. It is only when one steps out does one realize the weight of the abandoned $$. The dealers or the casino owners themselves have to do nothing, save for creating the right atmosphere. Each gambler incites the next one to keep going. It is a strangely perfected method of allowing people to feed off of each others' defects with no intervention from the original one that set the ball rolling. Fantastic, that is what it is.