Rays of hope

Last weekend, I was a bit too busy on my home computing – thanks to my operating system crash. Every time, I have been lucky to have an extremely understanding PC, not to die on week days, always on a weekend, so that I can lovingly tend to it over the weekend.

Quite a few good memories spring up during such exercises. This sunset image was one of the "finds" while organizing my data.

It was a lazy weekend evening when all of us were going towards Juhu Beach in the car along with my cousin. Nature has a wonderful mind of its own and luckily we had to be there when it decided to unleash a very special sunset.

Way before the sunset we saw these fantastic rays of sunlight moving out from the horizon and all across the sky, from behind the clouds. It was an extraordinary and mesmerizing sight to see the beautiful rays of the setting sun piercing an orange-blue sky.

I am always a happy sunset clicker as I am too lazy to go out and click a sunrise. Besides, God has been helping my laziness by providing the sea to our west, which makes it all the more easier for me to be a sunset freak.

I wonder how unhappy all the people on the east coast of our country must be – perhaps to wake up early morning if they want to capture a spectacular sunrise over the sea.

However a sunset has always been a wonderful philosophy to me. It represents an end. An end to something beautiful – the day. Perhaps it is God’s way of telling us that all that is good and all that is beautiful must eventually end.

An end means the start of a new beginning. However to welcome the new beginning, man requires tremendous hope and faith during the end. To be able to see the light in the end.

This picture re-affirms my faith. An end is never sad after all - for it will always bring a new beginning – a new you and a new day to undo all the mistakes and the hurts you gave the world yesterday. The rays of the setting sun symbolize hope in to the future. An anticipation of the good to come, like sunlight piercing the darkness of a dark room through tiny holes in the wall, shedding the darkness away. They are a a hope cause it means the end of the darkness.

The choice however is always ours, to make our future based on our past, or work on it today. It could be our career or our relations. Unfortunately as humans, we choose always to dwell on the hurts of yesterdays to scar our future, rather than forgiving and forgetting the past and working today anew to make a better and happy future.

Life is - Fresh Fried Eggs - Sunny Side Up :)

Yes - I believe this !!

Life is fresh fried eggs - Always Sunny Side Up !!

Whether my eggs or my life - always sunny side up - a pinch of salt and a dash of pepper and you are ready to go !

Add a bit of luxury - buttered toasts too !!

Pitter-patter, raindrops, Falling from the sky ...

“Meghan chya baasuritun yei surmayi wara.

Paaneri motyan cha jasa waahta zara.

Mrudgandh olsar saryanna pyara.

Asa payalya pawsacha anand nyara ho anand nyara...

Pahilya pawasachya subhechya!”

This pleasant, lovely SMS hit my mobile inbox with the first drops of rain hitting the roof of my car when I was driving on way home after a long day in office. Yes – the rains hit Mumbai !

For the past few months, the weather in Mumbai has been the most unkind. Predictably Hot – extremely hot. Absolutely still nights without a single cool breeze to blow away the dust finally settled on leaves, roofs, roads, buildings after endless journeys in the concrete jungle.

I was on my way back from work and had just pulled in to my parking space in my residential complex, when I heard the PLOP sound of a water drop hitting the roof of my car. Some random sequential PLOPS followed, few and far in between, but the sound was very sweet.

Slowly the Plops changed from sequential to random and fast pitter-patter – the sweet sound of rain drops.

“Aaj khush to bohot hoge tum,

kyonki..barish jo ho rahi hai

Aur barish mein

sabi MENDAK khush hi hote hai...”

As I got out of the car, the slow drizzle started to catch speed and soon what started off with fancy dot designs far apart on the dusty tar surface, soon connected to each other hiding the dust beneath and giving the wonderful, aroma of the soil. The hot and humid smell of the earth in the first rains. Nothing can smell better in nature. (D&G, Gucci, Boss don’t compare to this intoxicating aroma of the earth - our planet).

The rains arrived in style - complete with light and sound show to announce its arrival. The dark evening skies lit up with lightening, and a mighty thunder following the wild, unpredictable streaks of bright lightening. Just like a small naughty child which in the flash of a moment can do anything in its own mind.

“Godigulabi an thodasa rusva,

khup sare prem an thodasa ragva,

nako antar kadhi nako durava,

pavsala lajvel itka asava maitri madhye olava!

Pahilya PAVASA Shubhechya”

For the next few months, the rains will decide the fate of an entire population. Some places it will bring floods, some places it just wont show up and some places just wink and go away.

All I hope and pray is that the rain God is kind on us, that no farmer has to commit suicide for lack of water or for excess of it.

I pray that all the lakes in our city get filled so that the city peaceful can carry through the year and not have another burden laded on to it – like the shortage of electricity which we almost missed this year.

And I pray that the city does not flood like it did – even if for human failures in cleaning up the Mithi or for not constructing the new drainage or whatever else that these politicians can pick up and throw at each other.

I peacefully watched the rains for a few moments – thanked God for his kindness, for his reminder that he exists as nature, I closed the window, to dive back in to my own world. The rain drops plopping on my car and the SMS messages competing with them to hit my inbox, from happy people, who I am sure took the opportunity to step out of their busy lives to welcome this pleasant change and also took a moment to remember people in their lives and to share their joy with them, even if just with an SMS.

“Bhai: are circuit ye barish k waqt bijli kyon chamakti hai?

Circuit: bhai bole to uparwala torch marke dekhta hoga k sala kahi sukha to nahi rahgaya. HAPPY MONSOON”

I was all smiling to myself – for I know there will be days when the rains will be in all its fury and I will have to pull myself through some feet of water to drive my new car to high ground, my bike to high ground.

I smiled for I know, there will be a day when it will be too romantic and wet outside to be able to go to office and I will be able to sit on my window staring at the rain, a hot mug of tea flavored with some spices and a plate of hot kanda – batata bhaji , vada pau to accompany it. I also know Eesha will be there besides me, copying my every move, sipping tea like I do and eating bhaji like I do.

And life will go on – with these small gifts from God.

The common man in the signal

The drive from the West side of Andheri to the East where my office is, has off late become more of a marriage procession than a routine traffic jam. Thanks to multiple places of ill-planned dig up of the roads leading from the Western express highway to Saki Naka, the traffic these days takes the shape of a giant twisting serpent down the Andheri-Kurla road.

While most of the people are in the busses and ricks, which add to the chaos in the traffic, there are some elite fortunate ones like me in a car with their AC and FM Radio on.

All the wait and go traffic gave me a chance to see this road unlike anytime before. Usually this is a fast moving road so there is little chance of seeing what lies on its sides, except a few landmarks.

Yesterday I was at the signal of the highway, one of the few which still stand and from those one of the few which still function !!

I was glancing around trying to find something interesting to watch, since I was done with the ladies in jeans and t-shirts on the backseats of motorbikes and some lonely ones in a cool salwar kameez in the ricks with headphones from their music phones plugged to their ears and lost in their own world.

A lonely, tilted, ignored pedestrian signal on my side of the road caught my attention. Something really amazing caught my fancy. This was different from the bright, shiny lights which we normally see in signals (the few which still stand, amongst those; the few which still function). Usually the signals always have a plumpy human figure in the lights. This was a pathetic, undernourished humanoid which stood lonely in the red light of the signal. My heart instantly went out to it, more than it does to the lepers, beggars and eunuchs which hound every signal.

The man in the signal really cut a sorry figure. To me it represented what high inflation, taxes, chaotic and ill timed policies are doing to our country. It reminded of the man in the “Common Man” cartoon series by R.K. Laxman where a helpless, famished character is a speechless spectator to the going ons around him thanks to the mad state of Indian politics. Witnessing and documenting generation after generation, the shameless politicians reducing India and its population to petty vote banks to be milked and exploited for their own personal agendas and power centers.

The signal inspired me to think further – perhaps the frail common man in the signal looked perfectly qualified to be cast in to the minority politics of dalits or SC/ST or perhaps the OBC.

The signal turned green, people in bigger cars than mine behind me honked to get me going and I moved on, leaving the signal and the common man in it.

Make Way For My New Wagon R !!!

Its here finally - the first car of my life !!

A Maruti Suzuki Wagon R VXi model :)

Special number 1908 - Eesha's birthdate !

Google my life

I have always been a die hard music fan. International music more than Indian filmi music. I hear most of the music on television, music channels. on radio stations and buy that CD, cassette, or download that MP3 for the songs I like.

The more elusive ones are the real challenges which try your levels of patience and persistence to the limits. Bits and pieces which you hear some place and have no way of knowing which singer, or which song it is. But that bit clings to your ears and your heart, you want to hear more of it, all of it and over and over again. There are so many such bits and pieces which still roam my mind, with no hint about where to start looking for, in the ocean of music out there. The yearning in the heart to hunt them down, find them and listen to them grows stronger with each single day when you suddenly remember those pieces and your heart & mind writhe in agony.

The most difficult such search which I remember, was for an international classical song. I had first heard this song some years back in and around the festive Christmas season on board a Lufthansa flight on way to Germany. Lovely soothing music, a powerful and melodious voice of a male classical singer, a lot intensity and depth. Alas ! The song was in some foreign language which made it difficult for me to hold on to the lyrics. On a German airline, on way to Germany – I presumed it to be German. I moved around in Germany and the song followed me so many places I visited. Some restaurants, in the reception of some places I visited. It really seized my heart when I heard it once in the ball room of the hotel I was staying in. During a lovely marriage ceremony with happy smiling couples dancing to the tune of this song. The chandeliers hanging from the ceiling of the ball room flooded the whole place with very bright yet soft golden light. Wonderful memories like these weaved weaved itself with the lovely melody and got stamped on my mind and heart.

A couple of times, I tried asking my hosts or to people on the reception, however the language barrier meant they did not understand what I was trying to ask and a lot of times people asked for some leads as to which song I was referring to and I had no way to talk about it – except perhaps sing it. Thankfully I spared them and the lovely singer from embarrassment and the agony of hearing me sing.

Down the years the song flowed in my mind and my determination increased with each day that went by without my knowing what it was. Memories increased and with it increased the restlessness in my heart.

I googled the net with things like “famous German Christmas classical song”. Google leaped with joy and threw all the Mozart, Beethoven, Bach at me !!

The thirst one day reached a level that I took time by myself to draw a plan rather than random and emotionally driven google searches. Too many times in my life I have chased shadows driven by desires of my heart and only found myself leading from one blind alley to another. I decided to use this precious learning from life to find this song.

I compiled all the facts I seemed to know about this song so that I could use analytical elimination and focus on a narrow stretch.

The facts were simple the genre was western classical, the language and country of origin was perhaps German. And the singer was Male.

I lost all confidence in myself. With these facts, I could deduce without using a single grey cell that this search was going to be more complicated that I had thought earlier.

However my eagerness, the longing in my heart fuelled my determination.

On to Plan B. I have always believed strongly in two primary spiritual laws which drive the universe. Rule # 1 - “Deserve Before You Desire” and Rule # 2 - “When You Are Ready A Master Appears”

My interpretation of rule # 1 was that I should perhaps spend some time understanding western classical music before attempting to search for this song. So I googled and used all the Wikipedia’s wealth of information.

I learnt the following

* Classical male singers are called Tenors.

*They sing in an Opera to the accompaniment of an orchestra of assorted musical instruments.

*Based on things like the type of voice, frequency and modulation of the voice, the pitch, the huskiness, etc. Tenors further get classified in to several types.

*Tenors in addition to classification based on voice also belong to a particular style or type of performance. It can be contemporary, modern, renaissance, etc.

As I delved more, I learnt more about Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, Placido Domingo, José Carreras. The list grew on. I also learnt that the song I considered German was not really German. With all the research I did I narrowed it down to either Italian or Spanish.

I had reached a point where I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. The universal second law came in to effect.

One fine morning I woke up to a realization that I do not need to use google again but a site which sells music. The best bet was Amazon.com

I knew that I would still not be able to pin point the exact guy, I had to enter something general. I entered “Top Modern classical tenors”. It threw up so many top 100s, 50s, 10s albums. I noted each one of them,

Part -2 : Dashed over to my favorite torrent search engine and entered each album I could find there. I downloaded all the well seeded ones, hoping that some of the album would have that song.

Over some weeks I downloaded multiple gigabytes and 100s of MP3s from the net. Each night I slept with a lot of hope and excitement and each morning I was up and ready at my computer, playing each and every song in the download, hoping it would be my song.

One fine day, I started the same exercise. The album was “Greatest Classical Stars of all times”. I double clicked on a song, one of the hundreds I had clicked so far in the search and suddenly my mind went numb, a familiar piece of music, which so far had played in my mind alone, flowed from the speakers.

Russell Watson – Volare, a Spanish song sung by the famous English tenor. I repeatedly heard the song many times over and over.

That night I slept with a long yearning in my heart quenched. On a lone day with the euphoria settling down somewhat, I contemplated on the amazing and long journey I had started on, on a search for something so impossible. I tried to reason with myself about what made the song so special as to invest so much time, so much effort, and to learn a whole lot of new things including a tough genre of music.

I heard this song again from this perspective and I suddenly found that it was a great song, but perhaps only for my ears. It was not the best song out there. What made it so special was that I had embarked on a journey into the unknown to find it. It was a journey which my heart had yearned for. Without which it would not know peace. The experience, pain, and happiness which I experienced in the journey to find this song, made it so valuable.

I contemplated on this learning and expanded the thought to life.

So many times in life, we get in to situations where we experience a feeling as never before, something overwhelms us so much, takes over our mind and heart to an extent that we dream it day and night. We long for it. The end we are looking for is special because we see it as such due to that moment in our life. And then begins the journey, a quest to fulfill what our heart yearns for, longs for, without it our heart can perhaps find no peace.

The journey teaches us so many new things in life, about life itself, about people, relations and most importantly about our own selves. The journey has its curves and ups and downs, moments of happiness, sadness as well as desperation, anxiety, fear and loneliness. There are moments when we feel we have achieved the end, and that beyond this there can be no happiness. Only to find the next moment that it was an illusion.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that divinity puts these desires in to our heart perhaps only to make us embark on the journey, in the quest to satisfy the desire. For without this journey, we would never learn the lessons life has to teach us. I firmly believe that till such time that we learn the lessons well, divinity keeps on moving us in the same direction, till such time that we learn the lessons well. A number of times we slip in the journey, loose faith and the find journey meaningless and at times even stop the pursuit in sheer frustration. However divinity has destined for us to learn the lesson and so some day will put us on a similar journey again – to learn the lesson.

It is undertaking and learning from this journey, which is more important, than attaining the end. Perhaps that is the reason that in several such journeys we undertake in life, we do not reach the end at all. The journey has given us the experiences to learn the lessons from. If we do learn we grow wiser and understand divinity’s intention of the journey. If we do not learn, we despair and loose faith in life, in divinity for not getting what we set out to achieve. So many times as human we are so strongly driven by desire and emotions that we look only at the end and not choose to learn.

It is only wisdom alone which can help us judge the difference.

Running over my Driver’s License Test …

Today I had to take some time out to go for my car driving test at the Andheri R.T.O. A nice sunny day with the right amount of sunshine, which does not burn your skin nor one which can’t melt the coolness of the Mumbai winter. The R.T.O is just about 3 kms from my residence , so no problemo !

To step back a bit, I’ve been learning to drive a car for the past one month from a reputed Motor Training School in Andheri. I have a wonderful “Masterji” who trains me in a Maruti Esteem. Looking at the condition of the Esteem, I guess it was the first Esteem to roll out of the Maruti factory in India. I am sure in a few years time it will attain its vintage value. Inside nothing on the dashboard has any life, none of the meters or lights, except all those essential LEDs which must glow or blink to tell about the health of the car. The engine and the system however works smooth – no breakdowns – no knuckles shaking and no joints making any mechanical whines.

The “Masterji” could easily compete with the others in the “Great Indian Laughter Challenge” with his wise cracks especially when he responds to phone calls. He makes one completely relaxed. I think it’s a fine art he has refined over the last 15 years that he is doing this job with the same training school. A typical wise crack he has for me when I turn too less around corners is “Pukka Hai … After Bandra wala…. You are gonna see your name hit the headlines in the newspapers?” or when I try to squeeze the car in to a tight corner “This sir is not your bike – the car requires slightly more space than your bike does” and he says it in a very ingenious bambaiya accent he has.

I picked up the art of treating the accelator, clutch and the brake and the steering wheel as part of one coherent mechanical invention called the car in no time. However it was difficult for me to get out of my biking habits of speeding, shoving the bike in to small impossible passages. That took time !!

I found driving a car very comfortable – however too restrictive, the bike offers you all the freedom, the bike feels a part of you – you think where you want to go and your hands and feet move accordingly – unlike a car, it feels more like you moving your house with you and a turn is a real turn of the wheel. Steering a bike is more of an art, you speed towards a turn and then gently push your weight in the direction you want to turn, the bike obeys, slants in that direction and the turn happens !! and if you are at a right speed and the right slant of the bike, the turn can be really very thrilling to make your hair stand on end. That’s what I love about and will always love about bikes !!

Coming back to 4 wheels, finally today was judgment day. I would have to go to the R.T.O and take a driving test from one of the officers on duty. Apparently I was led to believe that the inspectors, officers, and seniors are all hand in glove with the training school, however things have changed after the unfortunate Bandra accident. Apparently these days people love to drive more on the sidewalks and over sleeping people rather than on the concrete road. The R.T.O. has taken it very seriously and now even senior R.T.O. officers supervise and oversee the tests.

To describe the R.T.O. office is easy. Think of the most dilapidated building you have seen in your life – this betters that. The place is just out of synch with anything called civilization. There is chaos and more chaos all over the place. I, for a moment thought I am in a circus. People randomly walking all over the place, touts moving around, once in a while an officer walks by you in a uniform, some with stars have people saluting them. It’s a funny place to be in. The test ground is just one very very dusty open ground with a lot of junked and old rotting cars lined up in some circle to define its boundaries. The other areas are lined up with the cars from the various motor training schools ready to take the test for the day.

I guess around 2500 people were present in the entire complex moving around aimlessly, and confused being led from one place to another by admin men from the various motor training schools they were graduating from. These men were the “managers” who would manage the entire circus right from the form submission, turning the pages for the officers to sign, negotiating a middle ground when an approval was not possible due to lack of some documents or personal indentity proof etc..

All kinds of people queued up for the test– mostly people you could see would be drivers for 3 or 4 wheelers. Some people like me – Rayban and Raymond guys. Some women, and the elite class of young women wearing loud colorful tight tops and low fit jeans with an exposed navel. From what I could see the people who were there to appear for the 3-wheeler test had a field day !

Our group of people like other sheep in the complex moved behind our training men from one place to other, blindly signing where they would put a cross on and standing where they would stop.

Finally after around 3 hours – the big moment came. We had to wait for 3 as the officer who would test us was in a presentation and running behind schedule. He came in – 3 stars and all and sat in a good car. All were neatly standing in a queue.

I was wondering how much time our group of 30 people would take to clear the test, when suddenly one of the managing guys walked down the queue whispering to each one of us “Just say your name and if he asks – say yes officer took the test”

Wow – so much for the heightened security and vigilance.

So my turn came, I took off my Ray-Ban and gave him a nice “Good Afternoon Sir” smile. He took one long look at my face, then an equally long look at my photo – for a moment I thought he would growl "hey your shirt is different" - Photo no-match - REJECTED !!

Fortunately, he kindly asked my name, scribbled something unruly in the name of a signture in one corner and that was it !!!

Then my masterji was asked by the owner of the training school – “take two three good guys and make the car move around the track to complete the formality.”

Hmm - that seemed logical. After all he atleast had the heart to complete all the formalities as required by the rules of the game. That he did not follow them in the right order was another story!

Masterji picked me up along with one other guy. Gave him the first round and it was a horror show, he left us all gasping for breath with his speedy turns and heavy foot on an accelerator. I think he missed atleast one 3 star official jay walking on the course. The masterji acted fast to hand over the wheel to me. I enjoyed the nice lovely drive for a couple of rounds, slow and nice – as perhaps a romantic couple would ride on their first date out. I am referring to the first few hours – not the last few ;)

The officer finally left and the owner announced to all us aspirants “Ok Go home – all passed with an A+”

That concluded my driving test at the R.T.O !!

Jai Hind !