Madhukar's Musings

'गर रहे सलामत ये पागलपन...

2009-11-05T08:20:00.000-08:00

पंछी, दरिया, पर्वत और वन,
इन्हे ढूंढ ही लूँगा इक दिन,
'गर रहे सलामत ये पागलपन...

साँसों में जीवन की हलचल,
लम्हों में खोती स्मृतियाँ,
इन्हे बाँध कर एक कहानी,
कभी लिखूंगा मैं इक दिन...
'गर रहे सलामत ये पागलपन...

एक कारवां के हम राही
ढूंढ रहे थे अपनी मंजिल,
क्या खोया था, क्या पाया था
शायद सुना सकूंगा इक दिन...
'गर रहे सलामत ये पागलपन...

पथिक स्वयं हूँ, पथ भी हूँ मैं,
अपने पथ-चिन्हों के पीछे
खोज रहा हूँ अपना साया
शायद मिल पाऊँगा इक दिन...
'गर रहे सलामत ये पागलपन...

कहाँ तक ज़िन्दगी में भटकने की विवशताएं हैं...

2009-10-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

2६ अप्रैल '८० को लिखी यह पंक्तियाँ...
---
सभी जो साथ थे वो पा गए अपने किनारों को
हम्ही बस हैं की जिनकी उलझनें अब भी दिशायें हैं...

कभी जब ऊब कर अपने बनाए आज से बच कर,
पुराने रास्तों पर फिर भटकते अजनबी बन कर,
किसी सुनसान झुरमुट से, हमारा ही कोई साया,
निकल कर पूछता है, व्यंग की मुस्कान-सी भर कर,
"मुझे क्यों भूलते हो जब मुझे ही खोजते हो तुम,
तुम्हारी आत्मा हूँ मैं, शुरू मुझसे हुए थे तुम!"

सहम कर हम ठिठक जाते, उसी सुनसान झुरमुट पर,
स्वयं को आंकने की चाह से यह पूछ लेते हैं,
"सभी ने पा लिया सन्दर्भ अपना, एक हम ही क्यूँ
अभी तक ढूंढते, दोहरा रहे अपनी पुकारों को?
कहाँ तक ज़िन्दगी में भटकने की विवशताएं हैं?॥"

An Autobiographical Story... of sorts..

2009-10-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

This was a "story" I had written about 25 years back - maybe earlier... auto-biographical in a metaphorical/fable sense, in that, it was written for me... Upto a point I wrote it, and then it went out of my control!!

----------------------

It was dusk, and a murky, heavy darkness was gradually replacing the pale fading light of the tired day. We, two of us, strolled back, tracing our steps to the half-lit, half-dark building of The School.

"Would he be there?" she asks me.

"I hope so."

Actually, I was no surer than her. Yet, the situation was almost a test of my spurious confidence in my luck and myself. I prayed to the powers that be, for his presence tonight.

As a matter of fact, far from knowing him, I had not even ever met him. But today was the Jumbler's Night, and I was told that he would be there. She was with me because she thought I knew him, a misgiving for which I was to be blamed.

During my visits to The School, I had heard about him and his peculiar qualities. One day, during one of our regular rendezvous, I had mentioned these things to her and she had got interested. I don't know what had come over me, but I had also told her that I knew him personally, and thus, had entrapped myself into a commitment of introducing her to him.

The durban at the gate saluted me. He had grown accustomed to my unaccounted presence in The School campus. I remember the first time I had loitered through the school gates. The durban had tried to stop me with a routinised intention of asking for my credentials. I had casually waved him aside with a contemptuous gesture of hands - so characteristic of me in such a situation. That had subdued him into a respectful obsequiousness, from then on. He had never again questioned the bases of my entourages to The School.

Perhaps, even I didn't know the reasons for my visits to The School, except that it was a peculiar and interesting place to go once in a while. I was neither a teacher nor a student, but would move around the campus as I please, with no one to ask me for an explanation. I would peep into the classrooms, visit the library, sit in the Staff Room, or just roam about. Somehow, the place seemed homely and familiar.

We entered The School building and walked across the tube-lit corridors towards The Quarters (The Quarters, as they are called, are an assemblage of old, now abandoned, residential buildings, which the school authorities had recently got converted into laboratories for him. However, they still retained their obsolete context and the inappropriate name).

The corridors, I had noticed earlier also, undergo a metamorphosis after sunset. The darkness walls up the open sides and they start giving the impression of a hazily-lit tunnel, almost like the labyrinths of the dreams. At night they an uncanny aura of mystery, and arouse an urge to traverse them and to discover their beginnings and the ends. My earlier explorations, however, had taught me that they had neither a beginning nor an end to themselves (I would always end up where I started from). They only connected all the buildings of The School to each other, and if one knew one’s destination, one only had to travel across them following a set of learnt or guided directions.

Our ‘destination’ was The Quarters, and so I knew which corridors to choose and which to leave. We walked on the mosaic floor, which was originally designed to create some kind of optical illusion of uneven depth. But time had deprived it of its originality and the shuffling of soles of countless foot-wears had weathered off its design.

Her wooden heels click-clacked on the floor, and echoed through the silence, that hung between us. As we turned once left and twice right, I mused over the immediate future, and my stakes in the encounter with him.

The verandah of The Quarters was large and open. It was dimly lit and the pale fog which had floated through, gave an impression of immense unexplored spaces. I looked at the door of The Lab. It was partly open and one could see a few articles through the two inch crack. I looked at her. She was pale and tense. I had hoped that she would propose our going back and thus, save me and herself from the ordeal. She disappointed me by nodding her head towards the door. This affirmation of her intention to meet him was, it seemed, less an act of courage and more a kind of hypnotic response to an unusual situation.

I took a deep breath and knocked at the door.

“Come in,” a confident and amicable voice came from behind the half-open door. I was somewhat taken by surprise. I had expected a gruffy and eccentric voice. This intonation hinted as a much more resolved and likeable person behind it. I looked back at her again. She looked slightly startled. We waited for about two long seconds, re-orienting ourselves, and then opened the door and entered.

He was sitting one a chair, peeping into a cage which had all its walls covered by a thick black paper. He was middle-aged clean-shaven person, with his hair neatly combed back. His face had a likeable flexibility, though the deep creases on it, accumulated through experience of having lived an intense life, had a confidence-inspiring firmness. He looked at us and his face lit up with geniality. Stretching his hands, he came to us. We shook hands.

“Welcome,” he said. “I was expecting you two.”

Obviously, he had mistook us for someone else – which was good, since it made my position more secure, requiring less explanations and justifications.

“Please make yourself comfortable,” he waved us to the two armchairs in the corner. “I will be just through with The Beast.”

The Beast was what had brought us here tonight. He has created quite a sensation when he had synthesized this creature, which was said to have no parallel in the physical world. What probably was most intriguing was the aura of mystery which surrounded Its existence. While almost everyone knew about It, only a handful of people were believed to have seen It. And these few, invariably, refused to talk about what they had seen. I was once introduced to one such person. When I asked him, he made a rather cryptic remark, “The Beast is only your imaginary reality.” He never explained the remark.

It is not surprising, therefore, that over a period of time, everyone had formed their own impression and opinion about what the Beast was like. These impressions were so different from each other that instead of resolving the mystery, they had only further deepened it.

As we waited for him, I looked around the room. It had a disorganized appearance. The plaster on the walls had worn-out, and one corner advertising the vestiges of an old wall-paper, sticking to it like a glorious thought faded past. A low-power bulb, hanging from the ceiling, emitted yellow oppressive light, which was further accentuated by the lamp which was beside him, and was focused inside the cage. There were some similar cages cluttered on the top each other in one corner. Another corner was occupied by a large table with books stacked on it. Apart from these, some small pieces of items, like ash-trays, papers, empty tea-cups, etc., were littered over the floor. And of course, in the center of the room was this uncomfortable stool on which he was sitting, peering inside the cage with deep concentration and enthusiasm.

I shifted my attention to her. Apparently, she was much engrossed with what he was doing, and was oblivious of the time and the world. The somber atmosphere of the room forbade me from speaking and drawing her into any kind of small-talk. In a way, the situation was welcome, since it obviated any awkward questions from her.

Suddenly, with a gesture of content and satisfaction, he stood up. With a last glance inside the cage, he came to us, giving us friendly and what seemed to me, a mischievous smile.

“I believe you have come to see The Beast?”

We nodded, expecting an invitation to have a peep at the synthesized specimen of human fantasy. He looked at us as if he found our curiosity quite natural.

“I am afraid, that would not be possible today. But I will tell you something about The Beast which nobody else knows."

He drew his stool near us and sat down, as if to tell a long story. That he had disappointed us had seemed to go unnoticed by him. I was plainly disheartened, and waited for an explanation for his refusal. He lit a cigarette and inhaled the smoke. The silence lengthened the suspense. At last, he spoke.

“The Beast, as it has been nicknamed, is not new to the mankind. In fact, It is not even a creation. It had always existed in the mind of the people. I have done nothing, except having given It a form and a shape. And even now, it is less tangible than the impression people might have given to you. I am still trying to decipher its nature. To some, It may appear as insightful and seductive as the snake in the Garden of Eden; while to others, It may be plainly mischievous and amoral as Loki. The Church would have named It Lucifer, and Freud was probably referring to It when he talked about that “cauldron of bubbling impulses” – the unconscious Id. I suppose, it all depends on people and their personal and historical sense of evil.”

He paused. He had still not given any reasons why we could not see the Beast. However, in terms of what he said, the omission seemed immaterial. Aware of my own sense of evil since the evening, I tried to conjure up the image of the Beast.

"In one of my experiments, I learned something very insightful about It. I believe, you will find it interesting”, he paused for some time, looking at me. "I had known that It doesn’t like bright lights and open spaces. I reasoned that, left in the open, It would try to dig a shelter for Itself in the ground. So, on day, when I put it out in the broad daylight, something significant happened.

"As expected, in the beginning, It was uncomfortable and reacted violently. It struck out at everything within its reach, with an almost blind rage. For almost an hour, I watched this display of Its ferocious energy from a safe distance. And then, it suddenly grew calm. I could sense that something had changed within It. Almost with a sense of purpose, it started digging into the ground. Very methodically, It dug a rather large hole, and descended into it. I followed him maintaining a safe distance. The dust raised by it helped me in keeping Its track. My feeling that its course of digging was guided by some purposeful instinct was even stronger now.

"And then suddenly, It stopped. I could neither see the dust being raised, not hear Its effortful panting. I thought that It must have got tired – or must have across some impenetrable rock. I crouched in a corner for It to start digging, or to return. But time went by, and nothing happened. It was as if I was alone in the tunnel. I was getting uncomfortable, and started crawling forward…"

He stopped and bent down to stub his cigarette on the floor. I noticed that the floor was littered with stubs and ash.

“What did you find?”, she asked, her yes widened, unable to conceal her curiosity.

“You know that, my dear”, he smiled and winked at her. “In fact, you know that better, for you came from there yourself.”

I was puzzled at this turn of conversation. I looked at her, and then at him. Her eyes were still widened, but more out of insight and realization, than out of curiosity.

“You mean, the time has come?”, she asked.

“Of course, it has. After all, it was he who led you here, isn’t it?”, he said, pointing at me....

"Hey! What’s going on!!", I was feeling uneasy. "What are you two talking about? How do you know each other?"

"You’ll know. You’ll know soon", she patted me on the shoulder. "Come, I will show you."

She got up and started moving towards the door. I looked at him, but he seemed to have concluded the interview. He nodded, as if asking me to follow her. For a moment I hesitated, then moved to follow her.

When I came out of the door, she was stepping down from the verandah into the darkness. I took a few strides, and was by her side on the steps. I was too perturbed and perplexed to ask her any questions. But I knew that. Come what may, I had to get to the roots of this enigmatic situation.

I had expected us to step on the ground after a couple of steps. In the darkness, it was difficult to see where the steps were leading to, but I had no reason to doubt my daytime memories of the building’s structure.

That’s why I was taken by surprise, when we kept on descending into the darkness. It was all murky black surrounding us, and the ground seemed to have disappeared. Even she was not visible, though I could feel her presence by my side. When I tried to look back, she stopped me.

"Don’t look back! The dizziness of depth is far more unbearable than the dizziness of the heights."

Her voice now had a calm and confidence, which somehow soothed my anxieties. I felt the ground firmer under my feet, and the eerie feeling I had been having, evaporated. As we continued our downward journey, I noticed the darkness giving way to a soft blue phosphorescent glow. We had entered into a sort of cavern. The atmosphere was gradually growing more and more tranquil and nostalgic. I had, I noticed, grown accustomed to this peculiar situation. In fact, I was feeling quite relaxed and excited.

The cave suddenly opened up in, what appeared to me, an architectural dream. It was like a three-dimensional maze. All around us were multitudes of arches, staircases, paths leading in all directions. The richness and symmetry of the structures was overwhelming to the senses. The place had an air of illusion and anticipation about it.

She seemed to know her way, and chose a flight of stairs, ascending in a spiral.

"Where do the other paths go?" I enquired.

"Same place where we are going", she said, as if that was self-explanatory.

"Then why did you select this very path?"

"Maybe it would suit you better", she said with a smile.

In a way, I understood her, though it was difficult to pin-point the exact meaning of what she had said. Her words were comforting, and that seemed to enough justification to trust her judgement. I followed her with a sense of wonder.

We climbed up the stairs, and then crossed over a series of bridges, tunnels and stairs, traveling at a leisurely pace, as if time didn’t matter. I was too much overcome by a feeling of awe and humility to really care where she was leading me to. I was content to be with her, mindless of the beginnings or the end of this journey.

That is why when, while passing through the tunnel, she suddenly disappeared through the solid wall on the left, I was shaken out of my trance. In panic, I took two long strides to reach where I had seen her disappearing. But she was there, standing in a well-concealed opening in the wall, which led to a kind of platform. There was a closed door at the end of platform. She was looking at me intently, with a kind smile.

"I have led you up to this point", she said. "But now you have only yourself to rely upon to experience what lies behind this door."

"Are you going to leave me?" I asked.

"No, I’ll be with you, but that will not really help you much."

She bade me to follow her, and turned. Almost reverently, awed by the mystery behind the door, I fell in step behind her. We crossed the platform, and with almost no effort, she pushed the door open.

I was hit by the force of some supernatural energy, which sort of sucked me inside. I was blinded by the bright benign light, and the music was driving me into wild paroxysms. I tried to keep my eyes open, but it was like looking into a whirlpool of gigantic energy. I was feeling dizzy, and tried to get hold of myself.

And then I fell.

It was like a tunnel, a sucking whirlpool, which gradually became darker and darker. My hands stretched, wildly seeking a support, waving blindly in a helpless panic. Darkness parted, leaving space for me to go down and then closed in on me. Deeper and deeper… irrevocably deeper. I was engulfed by the murky monolithic black, was coloured by it. My own boundaries were blurred. What remained of me was a bunch of mythical, imaginary, nebulous body sensations. Merely a darkness, encapsulated by another. There was no ‘I’, just an all-pervading stretch of eternal darkness. I had dissolved. The blind, shadowy, vaccuuous had become me.

The falling had ceased. I was everywhere, flowing around in the entropic, structure-less static nothing. I was nowhere.

No form, no motion, no light, no time. An eternity passed away.

The movement started as a slight tremor, a gentle sway, a ripple in the dark primordial pool. It passed through me, and restored the sensibility of a mass, which I could recognize as ‘me’. I gathered my lost sentience, trying to define the architecture of my split-out being. The explosion, the blast, the ensuing revolutions was sudden and unexpected. The deafening flood of a Titanic energy, the unbriddled fury of the unknown, lying dormant of eons, burst forth. An enormous gush of savage intensity caught me lost in structuring myself. I blew into pieces, and scattered around in the storm. The tempest hit me in a ceaseless succession, tossing me around, wave after wave, with an overwhelming force. I tried to resist, to recapture and to maintain my naïve vanity in my sense of being. My efforts were redundant in the face of that tireless momentum. It pierced my will, and blew me helplessly along its vertiginous course. I resigned myself to its power to dictate my directions.

It was then that they appeared. The Images. From the dark, swirlling, zooming haze which had engulfed me, they emerged and disappeared in an incoherent succession. Formless, shapeless figures, they screamed, laughed, shouted, wailed, and sang at a deafening pitch. I watched their demonic, chaotic movement, mesmerized and unaware of their affinity with me. And then dawned that awareness, slowly seeping through me, and along with it, a chill, a horror, a nameless repulsion for these alien beings. I fought in defense, and tried to hit at these cruel indictments of fate.

"We are the ghosts of your own making", they cried and eluded my panic-stricken blows at them. I realized that they were right. Vague, formless memories of the sins of the wandering soul lit up and acknowledged and confessed their existential guilt. I had sinned, had forgotten and had neglected. And had taken that as a way of life… which life? I tried to recall and peeped through the blind corridors of my memory. Through the dim, misty sense of a life lived –and forgotten – something emerged. And what emerged was an unlived life and countless debts of living. I shuddered and turned away.

They squealed in delight. A saddistic, revengeful delight in my agony and regrets. They revelled in my misery and danced around me – an infernal rhythme of diabolic fascination. They closed in on me, drawing me, possessing me.

"Please", I pleaded. "Save me, forgive me for my sins. I want to live again. I want to free myself of you."

Magically, the dance ceased.

All of a sudden, there was a silence. A piercing, deep silence. I turned, but they had disappeared – and a dark, nostalgic void had replaced them. The movement, the spiralling thrust from nowhere, had also ceased. I was again hanging lose in a vaccuum. The dark sordidness had taken shape of a benign grey mistiness.

I floated aimlessly, waiting for something to happen. I was feeling light and cleansed. It was like being nearer to Home - a nostalgia – not for a life back there, but for an eternity to be there for mine. That was always there before the Fall.

A grey point I was looking at for some time, gradually started becoming lighter. Something was happening. I waited in anticipation. It grew brighter and brighter, a cherubic soft aura radiated from it whose intensity grew with each moment. Streams of emotions – of love, of piety, of a kind of and wonder, of surrender – rushed out from within me, and tripped over each other. Enraptured, I watched this unfolding of the light. I bathed in Its intensity and felt an unaging affinity to It. As if this was the Home, the Mother, the Source of all that was me and was not me.

"My child", a soft mesmerizing Voice echoed in the grey primal pool and touched the core of my being. I felt transparent, and yielded to an archaic instinct of relatedness to this Being. My soul lay itself bare to absorb Its benevolent essence. "Do you still want to live?"

It was neither a question, nor a statement. Or perhaps it was both. It was also a decree, a judgement exiling me from my Home, which entailed an assent and a grateful acceptance.

"Yes, you will live", the Voice continued. "but you will live under the curses you have created for yourself. You will live with them and learn to live with them. They’ll be part of your life as they have never been before. They will permeate your existence and save and contradict it. In your journey, they‘ll be your guides and obstacles. Your final freedom will also be your imprisonment to them."

I paused, as if to let my Karmas sink within me, and then said, "Would you like to meet them?"

"I have met them", I shuddered.

"No! You have seen them and feared them. Feared them for their alien familiarity. You’ve pleaded with them, and they have been merciful", It paused. "No, you have to meet them and know them and accept them. Come!"

And I felt being helplessly sucked from within that benign aura. It didn’t matter any more. The will, the resistance against life was futile and redundant. I was happily absorbed and lost.

Image... the Essence of life, floated by. And I absorbed their silent commentaries of their re-introduction into my life. What was to be me – the playground, the arena of archaic forces – was being written...

…“I am your Rationality. I’ll help you not loose yourself. I am the tyrant who will impose sanity on you, and imprison you in my clutches. I’ll enter all your relationships and breathe them hollow and soul-less. You’ll love me and hate me for never letting ‘meet’ others and yourself..

…”I will wage war on Rationality. I’ll fight with it and tear you asunder. You’ll yearn for me, for the sense of belongingness, for love and intimacy. I’ll entice your wandering soul and suffocate it within the confines of the commonplace mediocrity. For I am the Life you’ll contradict in the process of living…”

…”And I am your insights and confusions. I am the Words, that will guide you and misguide you. At my will, I will make you superficial – or push you down into the overwhelming gamut of the Unknown. You’ll try to conquer me, and I will lead you into blind corners, and tear you apart, reducing you to wrecks of insanity. And yet, I’ll save you from losing yourself to the insanity of Reality….”

…”I am the First Principle, the violent, free wild energy. You’ll lack me and love me and fear me. I’ll implore you, seduce you and yet elude you. I am the contrast you’ll try to emulate and fail. I’ll join the Words and build up images you’ll worship and succumb to…”

…”And you’ll run after me, sketching my images, and losing me. You’ll interpret me and re-interpret me for I am the Reality that’ll haunt you and yet remain nebulous and hazy. I am the illusions you will paint on the horizons, and dreams you’ll cherish for yourself. I’ll negate your existence, in order for you to find yourself. I am waiting for you, my lost traveler!...”

…”I’ll make everything vulgar and plebian in your life. I’ll cut your wings and bind you to earth. I’m the Time that’ll make everything look critical and important. You’ll try to imprison me and I’ll flow out of your fingers. A sense of passing away, of loss, will hypnotize you and you’ll whither away – futile, mocked at, alone…”

…”And I am the end, the final aim that’ll dog each of your steps. I will contradict Life. But you’ll never be able to recognize me as separate from Life, for I’m Death. My shadow will be your shadow. I’ll fascinate you, and haunt you in the long hours of loneliness. You will live through decaying feelings and faces. But I’ll help you to live and grow, and will thrive on your own sense of mortality…”

They came and went by. Awe-struck, I listened to the drama of my life, unfolding and being preordained. Cursed benedictions, harmonious contradictions, the amoral blend of good and evil, being rolled into a pattern, which was to be me – and my cross to bear…

I felt tired. A sense of lethargy, negated by a promise, crept up and possessed me. Absorbing, I waited for the curtains to go up…

****

on being "Blessed" today...

2009-09-26T10:03:00.000-07:00

I have known this Grand Ole' Man of XL - the Merlin, Gendalf, Dumbledore, or whatever archetype one would prefer to assign to him - since 1990-91 when I had freshly joined XL - many others have known him since the '50s... and I was always awed by the way he could reach out to people, could remember his students by names and personal details... even after 40 years!!

Over the years, I have psychologically "adopted" him as a person you look upto, admire/ try-to-be-like-OK!hopefully!! (like, I am sure, many others), and "take care of" as much as you can... difficult to explain - but that is how it is/ has been!!

I knew that he has not been keeping well - was in Jamshedpur (from Bhubneshwar) for treatment/recuperation...

Today, I met him in the Admn Block - he had hobbled over (he has an an artharitic knee) from the Tome's Residence....

"Ah, I was looking for you!" he said.

"How are you, Fr - I heard you are not keeping well?"

"old age! kya karoon!... I have problem in breathing now... but just came to tell you, I have seen your mails - have seen what the students are doing to make life better for others - it is worth their efforts - they must go ahead... Just keep up the good work going!"

... and before I could thank him for his blessings, he turned and hobbled out from the corridor...

This will be a moment which will remain in my memory... when you just get 'blessed'

(and yes!... we will, as much as we can "keep the good work going")

बिजली के भीगे तारों पर...

2009-09-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

This is what an 18-20hrs train journey does to one...
बिजली के भीगे तारों पर
बारिश की बूंदों के जैसे
फिसले, फिसले जीवन के पल
चलते, चलते गिर जाते हैं,
ओझल हो कर खो जाते हैं..
i.e., it brings out the poet - of some sort - in you out of boredom
:)...

क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है!.. ?

2009-08-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

In those days, when we were growing up... in mid/late-teens in early '70s...

... there were 3 of us (now 2)... who grew-up together, and would meet every other evening, discuss and debate the "world issues"... - we were the "romantics", dangling between GB Shaw, Oscar Wilde and Jean-Paul Sarte/ Albert Camus... essentially, trying to find ourselves... and sometimes we will also throw a gauntlet to each other...

One of these, I recall (and it still stays with me) was when we decided to make poems ending with "क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है"

one of us (not me - Binnoo) who made these verses
"मुझमें है मष्तिष्क ह्रदय है
मुझमें काम क्रोध और भय है
जो अपना है, उसे भुला के
रूप देवता का कर लूँ मैं!
... क्या जीवन का ध्येय यही है?...

... these verses still remains with me...

वोह लखनऊ कहाँ है?

2009-08-15T21:04:00.000-07:00

लहजे में वो नफासत, वो रंग-ओ-बू कहाँ है?
वो दिल फरेब बातें, वोह गुफ्तगू कहाँ है?
था जिसपे नाज़ हमको, वो लखनऊ कहाँ है?

वो खुश्बुओं के रेले, दिल्कश हसीन मेले
दिल की जवाँ तरंगें,वो ख्वाहिशें उमंगें
जैसे बरस रही हो, रस रंग की फुवारें
अब तक बसी हैं दिल में,लव लेन की बहारें

अब भी है काफ़ी हाउस, लेकिन था एक ज़माना
जब शायरों अदीबों का, यही था ठिकाना
सिगरेट का धुआं जैसे हर फ़िक्र का बादल था

यह गंज यूँ तो अब भी चाहत है लखनऊ की
बदली हुई सी लेकिन रंगत है लखनऊ की
अंदाज़ वो नहीं हैं आदाब वो नहीं हैं,
आँखें वही हैं लेकिन अब ख्वाब वो नहीं हैं

इखलास की वो बस्ती वीरान हो गई है
इस भीड़ में शेहेर की पहचान खो गई है
तहजीब मुख्तलिफ है माहौल भी जुदा है
अब कैसे कह दें हम लखनऊ पर फ़िदा हैं

- verse of remembrances about the Lakhnau by Khushwant Singh on the eve of Hazratganj turning 200 next year in Oct 2010

learning from Amma!

2009-05-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

Till few years back, my mom – Amma - used to visit us, and stay with us…

I have an immense of admiration for this gutsy lady - my Mom! - ... she still keeps on writing for the magazines – keeps herself alive and active…. Which is really a remarkable feat if you are around 85yrs!!

Last time - about 5-6yrs back -, she visited us… and in one of the conversations she said: “this world is changing too fast for me…”

It was like an era slipping through her fingers…At that time - about 5-6yrs – back, this didn’t make sense to me

Though, now, some times, it does!.... “ya! Maybe one needs to keep pace to keep up with the technology” –I tell myself

And, I do try to decide if it is really worth it!!

I mean…. it may be more realistic to accept that “you were there once!”

And you did what you could!... that’s it!!

11 years back...

2009-01-11T07:57:00.000-08:00

I guess, this is the time &date to pick-up from where I left a year back, and to relive those days of growing up more than 3 decades back...
...to remember & pay tribute to a person, who was so much a part of that time and era in my life...
The Theme, then was
भटका भटका भटका दिया है प्यार ने फिर प्यार पाने के लिए...
here are some of the verses which followed...

जब कभी इस साँस का स्वर
मौन हो जय बिखर कार
पवन के संग गीत बन कर
बहेगा मेरे लिए...

***
साध खो दूँ जब स्वयं की
छांह में तपते बदन की
अधर पर भाषा अधर की
लिखेगी मेरे लिए....
***
किसी जलती दोपहर में
थके जीवन के सफर में
लड़खादृंगा डगर में
किंतु मत रोको प्रिये!....
***
गीत साँसों का मिले
dhadkanon का काफिला यह
ruk saka naa silsila यह
kshan मरे, pal-pal jiye...
***
s**t!! technology defies.... can't manage "transliteration".... giving up :(

एधर
का काफिला ए

On Facing Death...

2008-07-26T09:57:00.000-07:00

Randy Pausch, the IT Prof in Carnegie Mellon (with specialisation in Virtual Reality), died today... He succombed to pancreatic cancer, which he had harboured, looked in the eyes since long....

Since the time, when in September last year, he had given his "Last Lecture", he had become a phenomeon ("The Last Lecture" is a series at CMU, where Profs are invited to give the lecture/talk, which they would, if it was there last one... IN case of Randy Pausch, it was a real talk, since his doctors had given him just a few months to live)...

Since then, he had appeared on Oprah Winfrey show, had written a book "The Last Lecture"...etc., etc.

[To access any of those just Google "Randy Pausch"]

What struck me about his "Last Lecture" was:

1. his humaneness in the face of death, and

2. that he had prepared his lecture, not for the audience, but for his 3 kids - he was making a point about a life - lived and understood in its own context...

...which reminded me about someone, I used to know intimately - in similar circumstances, who had written:

...It is like this - it has to be different for everyone. If twenty years back someone had told me all that I would feel, or that there was a point - I would have thrown it all out without a second thought - because nothing mattered when I was 18... Life for me began when... Then other things happened, and from time to time I lost track of the meaning behind it... I still have to put it all together. And no one else can make this story work out for me. This is a crisis even now, in fact, now larger than life.

And still, when I am not there any, I want you to tell X__, it mattered...

... I think the image I have resisted putting on paper is the Confluence. Two rivers coming closer and joining for a while - but each has to take a different direction. Each absorbs the other for a while, and nothing remains the same. Yet, the point of the river is to flow. The point of the human being is to remain humane and vulnerable...

And still I want you to tell X__, that it mattered. There was a point to the music, the chocolates, the fancy dresses, the loneliness and the hopelessness, the talks, the walks, the dreams and the mourning, the helplessness in the face of hurt...

...That is the point for me... don’t call it a quest for immortality or any such thing. It is not for my sake that I wrote this down. It is for her and you - but because of all that, it is for me also."

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture was his way of saying: "It mattered."!!

In any case, the Life goes on!...

[Cross-posted @ Alternative Perspective

An Obituary - written 27-yrs too early...

2008-05-22T20:32:00.000-07:00

Life reccurs in intriguing ways. Here is one such instance:

It was a ritualistic call back home, just when I was boarding the flight to Dubai last month - to inform my mother that I will be out of country for 4-5 days.

"Do you know? Lootu expired!," she told me, just as I was being ushered inside the aircraft cabin. "I came to know this only yesterday. He had a massive heart-attack, and died on the spot... that was in February."

There was nothing much to do with the sudden numbness. Before the flight took off, I made a quick call to the third of us teenage trio who grew-up together - long walks in Lucknow cantt, sitting on Pipra Ghat, writing/ sharing poems, discussing books, musing/discussing/fighting on our in-process-of-getting-formed perspectives on life and self - and in the process, sharpening it...

Next fortnight, when I visited his place, auntie had grown old and forgetful. His brother, in a way summarised his life, "You know that. He lived a reckless life..."

And so, during last month and a half, I have of and on thought about him, about our first meeting when we were 12-13 year old, our hitch-hiking trip together to Kathmandu, those long late-night tea sessions in hostel canteen, our growing up together, and our drifting apart and intermittent meetings once in a while...

...and then today, Recurrance happened. While doing some housekeeping of old documents, came across this piece I had written in May '81. It was like finding an obituary which was written 27 years too early!!

---------

An Encounter with Death

When I returned from the office, the postcard with a torn corner was lying on the floor. "It is with deep sorrow that we inform you of the sad and untimely demise of Mr Asutosh Kumar…" it read in an impersonal bureaucratic tone. As if the message deliberately aimed as dissociating any personal meaning from the words.

I sat down, numb and uncertain. When you are middle-aged and an old friend dies, the feelings are mixed and confused. Emotions rushed forth within me and tripped over each other. A sense of triumph for having outlived him, a feeling of guilt for feeling so, for being alive while he was dead, a sense of despair, of time and life slipping away from between the fingers, of one's own mortality - all these combined and prepared a curious blend of crooked emotions.

Asutosh was an old friend since the hide-and-seek and marble days. We had grown up together and learned the strategies of living through common experience. Though time and adulthood had drifted us away into different compartments of life, the bond of a common past had somehow lingered through occasional new year and birthday cards. And now he was dead and it felt unreal.

Death makes so many things unreal. There were so many irrelevant, yet magically significant experiences Asutosh and I had shared with each other. Somehow, this commonality of our memories made me feel my past as more real, more concrete, more secure. As if I found a comforting validation of my life in his memories. But now, those memories were gone, irrevocably lost, with Asutosh, and along with them, the objectivity they rendered to my past. My memories could well have been my autistic fantasies.

Mechanically, I got up, mixed myself a drink and lit a cigarette. I was awed by the change in the meaning of death over time. When my father had died, and that was nearly twenty years back, I had accepted his death as natural, as the logical conclusion of a life lived. I had acted like a realist, had accepted the inevitable, and had efficiently managed the rituals of his last rites, the bank account, policies and the certificate. I had felt myself grown up and his death had been my passing test into the adult world and maturity.

But now Asutosh was dead and what I felt was an empty hole in my life-space. Death, after all, I reflected, is not the conclusion of life. It dogs through the every step of life and takes one by surprise. It had struck me now, but I will go on living. A little less, perhaps, for a portion of my life was dead with Asutosh. Perhaps, that is why we mourn death, because a part of us dies with others - just as it had lived with others. I wondered if life - my life - was only a summation of its pieces that lived and died with others…

My eyes looked through the windows. The sun had gone down and sky looked gray and dusky. In a few moments it would be dark. I looked toward the approaching night and tried to accept its inevitability…

30 years back!

2008-05-05T22:03:00.000-07:00

seems like yesterday, actually...

My first poem...

2008-03-31T09:06:00.000-07:00

It's funny how one (re)discovers oneself through one's progeny...

When Bitti came last time, she reminded me of the promise I had made to her - that, when she is 21+, she will have access to our old diaries...

...and that is how she discovered this poem - my first (I rediscovered it)...

I was 15-and-half year old (dated 23rd Jan, 1971) when I wrote this (and was totally unaware of the prophesy of these verses to become a reality more than a quarter of a century in my life)...

At that time, I thought that this was better than William Wordsworth 1st poem:)

I measured it from side to side,
'Twas three feet long and two feet wide
:0)

In any case, this is what I had written more than 37-years back:

The Lips that were a cup of wine,
the eyes that bore a twinkle shine,
the curls that I can ever adore,
were not that day, as they're before.

The lips had peace, a calm smile.
Her face looked as a drawn profile.
The eyes that bore a twinkle gleam,
had lost it for an endless dream.

The curls that gave a joyous thrill,
were lying on the bed, sad and still.
I sat in tears besides her bed,
and sadly wept with bent down head.

In fading light the beauty slept.
With humble steps, the darkness crept....

For his daughter

2008-03-06T05:29:00.000-08:00

Once in a while, one comes across words - written by someone else - which express things much better than one could have done oneself....

Shekhar Kapur wrote this for his daughter:

My wealth lies more in the faliures of my life than my succeses. My wealth lies in people I have known and lost. My wealth lies in the pain and the heartache of living.

My wealth lies in the memories of those moments of love that were given to me. And given by me. But my wealth also lies in letting those joyous moments and people go.

My wealth lies in all those unfullfilled dreams. In all those longings that aroused my passions. My wealth lies in all the passions I have ever felt and expressed. And those not expressed.

My wealth lies in every moment of guilt that I carry for actions done or imagined. That burden too is my wealth.

My wealth lies in every breath that I have ever breathed. Each imbued with doubts and questions and hopes and dreams. And fears.

All this wealth I bequeath to you. For you to squander to the winds..

On Being a Teacher...

2008-02-21T07:58:00.000-08:00

Today being “the first day of the rest of my life”, allow me these musings…

….somewhere as I grew up, I became a “teacher” (a term that makes more personal sense to me than being a “professor”)….

[Why? How?... well, such conclusions are always post-hoc, but perhaps I became one, because I had hoards of role-models around me – my grandfather (a theosophist who became the principal of their Varanasi school, and at one time, was the private tutor to the JK Singhanias), my grand-uncle who became the principle of the Gwaliar’s Scindia School, my two uncles who were profs at Delhi and Bombay Universities…, etc.]

… As I grew up, I also recall a dream/fantasy in my teens and early-20s of an Ashram that I would start, to teach the marginalized children… (need-less to say, the fact that I ended up teaching in a business-school where I interact with people who are “marginalized” from the rest of 95%+ of society is an irony… another story…)

But coming back to being/becoming a teacher…

It was not easy… how do you “teach” – i.e., make a difference in someone else’s life? Can you?

When I read Jerry Harvey’s “Learning not to Teach”, I could resonate with him…. He wrote:

“The longer I am employed as a professor, the less sure I become as to what a teacher is supposed to do. When I stand up in front of a class and someone says explicitly or implicitly, "teach me," I become confused because I seldom feel as if I have anything to teach...

…..anything of value can't be taught, but that much of value can be learned. I suppose that's one reason I find teaching so unsatisfying and learning so much fun.“

And then I came across this quotation from Rabindra Nath Tagore, which made so much sense:

“A very great musician came and stayed in our house. He made one big mistake… (he was) determined to teach me music, and consequently no learning took place. Nevertheless, I did casually pick up from him a certain amount of stolen knowledge.”

This, of course, led me to many academic explorations into issues of learning, tacit knowledge, Nonaka, John Sealy Brown, KM, etc. – but at the heart of all this, I realized that simple – and somewhat shattering – realization as a teacher:

You can’t teach anything to anyone; people learn what they want to learn… what need to learn.

{in retrospect, it was clear; I (should have) learned it the hard/frustrating way: …when our daughter was 2-3 years old, we thought that a stimulating environment will help her to grow. And so, we got crayons, a sketch book, and plastered the walls with cardboard sheets for her… the idea was to give her a medium for “freedom of expression”…

..as parent/teacher, the frustrating part was that she was having more fun rolling the crayons on the floor (or just dropping them to see them break) than in using them on the paper…}

I guess, she was experimenting – and learning something (maybe about gravity)… but it was definitely not what we “wanted” her to learn at that time ;0)}

I found an analogue to this as I taught courses…. Students perhaps, learn more about how to “crack” the quiz/exam, than about the subject….

So it again all boiled down to: You can’t teach, but people learn…. Though, you can “facilitate” learning.

This issue of “facilitating learning” was quite seductive. For a long time, I felt that I have (or can develop) the power to create an atmosphere/ environment, in which people feel “facilitated” to “learn” and “grow” as a human being… the issue, however, still remained:

but how??... How does one “facilitate” learning & growth?

…Life takes its own turns, and mysteriously communicates… and so, though I never thought that I will be going through someone’s private diaries … but that also happened…

…which was a learning of another kind… to quote:

“I learnt once again that the self exists in relations to the other, but not necessarily to confirm the Other, or to be confirmed by the Other. Beauty in any relationship must be achieved though truth and some amount of genuineness - it is not a part of the basic givens of life…

...I think the sun facilitates growth, the rain facilitates growth; they facilitate growth by just being there, by being what they are. The sun does not rise - and the clouds do not rain - so that the plants will grow, but their being there is invaluable to the growth…”

This seemed so simple and easy: all that facilitating learning required was to “be yourself”

Over a period of years, I have come to realize that this is really not as easy and simple as it seems…

…specially when:

• You know that “being oneself” is not a statement; it is an extremely personal – often an uncomfortable - continuous, and ever-changing process of self discovery, and

• You are standing in front of a class of intelligent people – and are part of a system – which expects you to teach!!!

Growing up... in the 70s

2008-01-13T08:01:00.000-08:00

... when we were growing - long back in the early 70s - there was a romance of life... and we would take up a line/phrase

This is what came out of this....
the line was:

भटका दिया है प्यार ने फिर प्यार पाने के लिए...

क्षितिज पर कोई चितेरा
खींचता सपना सुनहरा
हृदय छलता मार्ग मेरा
भ्रमित आशाएँ लिए.॥

I guess... hope... I have not changed since then...

10 years back....

2008-01-11T08:24:00.000-08:00

....I confronted the void...

...and learned to grow to fill up that vaccuum in life

I hope - or at least I try to believe - that I have done a reasonably decent job to carry on what was left half-way...

maybe, once that gets over will also be time to leave....

Revolt in the Animal Kingdom

2007-06-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

This an amazing video... a must-watch!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM

The nearest imagery from the human world that came to my mind when I watched it, were some of the scenes from Eisenstein's films like October, Battleship Potemkin, Strike, etc...

still remember these verses

2007-06-16T22:55:00.000-07:00

Another of those verses that I still remember, but can't recall the poet (if you know, would be grateful for the info):

रे चिरंतन!
ठहर कुछ क्षण,
शिथिल कर यह
मर्म बन्धन।

जानता अभिसार का चिर मिलन पथ मुझको बुलाता,
कौन गाता... कौन गाता...

trying "transliteration"

2007-06-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

one learns...

only recently, I came across a term "transliteration"... googled, and found that blogger provides a "transliteration tool"... which allows me to make blog-posting in Hindi devanagari lipi

it is a trial... just keying in some of the many verses of the old days (not mine... and have forgotten who wrote these), which I still remember after 35-40 years (I grew up with/through them):

गीत गाता हूँ किसी दिन बाँध चंचल काल का पल
चेतना अपनी बना दूंगा स्वरों की एक हलचल
मौन का जब बाँध टूटेगा, घड़ी होगी प्रलय की
क्या नहीं इस मौन मे हलचल छिपी मेरे हृदय की?...

if this works out, then there is more to come...

Update: It works!!.. यह काम करता है!!

Making a "tough" quiz for a "tough" OB course

2007-05-04T08:18:00.000-07:00

For those who don't know this "OB" stands for "Organisational Behaviour"...

In MOC (my creativity course), I try to communicate to the students that our thinking and actions are influenced/constrained by how we perceive a situation (and so, if we change our way of perceiving a situation, new solutions would emerge)

The disadvantage of such a simplistic approach is that it is not sufficiently complex, lacks academic rigor, and since students learn it easily, there is no way one can make a tough quiz on this point, which they can't solve.

Today, luckily, I stumbled upon something called "Theory of Situated Cognition", which defines the above mentioned common sense in the following mysterious, complex and academically respectable format:

"A theory of situated cognition suggests that activity and perception are importantly and epistemologically prior - at a nonconceptual level - to conceptualization and that it is on them that more attention needs to be focused. An epistemology that begins with activity and perception, which are first and foremost embedded in the world, may simply bypass the classical problem of reference - of mediating conceptual representations."

I am sure, an ordinary sane person will find it almost impossible to make sense out of such inane drivel - and thus, this is a proof that OB is actually a tough subject, if one takes sufficient pains to prove so.

...and now, I also know how to make tough quizzes for the students!!! :0))

at the right place, at the right time

2007-04-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

Well.. I was at the at Oxford end of March '07 to attend the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship '07 at the Said Business School - and to attend the first meeting of the Advisory Board of the University Network...

....we both met on the side walk of the Broad Street, both searching for the Sheldonian Theatre where he was to be a speaker in the inaugural ceremony, and I was to sit on an excruciatingly uncomfortable chair/bench... !!

I can't claim it as an "achievement" - it wasn't!!

I was merely at the right time at the right place...

...last time similar coincidence happened was when I was born :0)

...of wolves and soul

2006-11-14T22:47:00.000-08:00

A father got a story in his mail box, which was doing rounds on the net:

"One evening, a grandfather told his grandson about the conflict that goes on inside each one of us.

"The battle is between two wolves," he said. "One wolf is called Evil, and it is anger, jealousy, lies, arrogance, guilt, false pride, superiority, and ego.The other wolf uses almost the same letters in his name, which shows how close they are to each other. This wolf is called Life, and it is love, peace, truth, hope, humility, kindness, and compassion."

The grandson thought about this for a few moments and then asked, "Which wolf wins, Grandpa?"

"The one you feed," the grandfather replied."

He liked the simplicity of the story, and forwarded it to his college-going 20-year old daughter.

Next day he got this response:

"But those are human "failings". One is incomplete without feeding either, because one is only attempting to starve the other, which makes it angry, as per logic, and then it'd come back with a vengeance to EAT you.

No?"

Long back, Goethe's Faust had responded to Wagner:

By one impulse alone are you impressed.
Oh, never learn to know the other!
Two souls alas! are dwelling in my breast;
And each is fain to leave its brother.
The one, fast clinging, to the world adheres
With clutching organs, in love's sturdy lust;
The other strongly lifts itself from dust
To yonder high, ancestral spheres.

Bloggers vs IIPM: Two Concerns

2005-10-13T06:18:00.000-07:00

There are two troubling aspects about "the IIPM" vs."the Bloggers" episode.

I had written about the first one in my last post on Alternative Perspective yesterday, which was about preserving the sanctity of the grassroot democracy and freedom of speech of the blogosphere.

But the other is an equally important aspect - about the response from the blogger community:

Needless to say, this episode has brought many bloggers together. They are writing - expressing their concern, outrage, dismay, solidarity, anger - and geting connected. DesiPundit and SambharMafia have done a remarkable job of tracing the blogs, postings and news about the issue and compiling them at one place.

So why is that a troubling thing?

for two reasons:

one:
I had once made a posting about the Primitive Processes on Internet. Given the nature of the medium, it is so very easy to get carried away by it. I mean, when the only 'human' interface is with a terminal, it is quite easy to slip into solipsism, and fall prey to one's own fantasy and impressions (even if they maybe, by and large, correct). This is more likely to happen in interactive forums - mailing lists, online group, and across connected blogs - since each posting only reconfirms what one believes in.

So if the concern is about finding the "real" facts about IIPM (and if they are different than what is given in their advts), there is actually no attempt (or at least, no report of such an effort) in that direction. It would be far more "real" thing to do (if one is staying in a city with IIPM campus), to actually go and talk to the students or faculty there, have a look at their infrastructure, get in touch with any of their alumni (a partial list is available at: http://www.iipm.info/placements.html) to find out if their education was worth it or not.... and share that on one's blog.

After all, one can't form an opinion about the worth of an institute and its education, based on just its hyper-ads, the behaviour of a few who may have vandalised Rashmi Bansal's blog, or had created those ridiculous "IIPM blogs" overnight...

...in any institute, one will find a few immature people of this kind.

two:
When an issue of personal concern gets framed as a fight against someone (not against something), then one becomes vulnerable to casting oneself in the image of one's "adversary" (in this case, in the image of what one perceives as "wrong" with IIPM).

Two examples of why I find this as a real and possible danger in this unfolding of events:

- I read some suggestion in a blog about why not to "googlebomb" IIPM, (which actually will be an act very similar to those very objectionable comments in Rashmi's blog).

- I found this through a posting on Dilip D'Souza's blog: the use of Wikepedia to highlight the controversy.

While there is an apparently sincere attempt to keep this in-construction IIPM Wikepediia page objective and neutral - but the fact remains that the motive for constucting this page is a controversy, where the builders of the page have "stand"

...Somewhere, The Virtual needs to visit The Real - both either to verify or to disconfirm it, and to remain grounded in reality.

Manual for Climbing Mountains

2005-03-17T22:41:00.000-08:00

From Paulo Coelho's this week's Warrior of the Light Newsletter

A] Choose the mountain you want to climb: don’t pay attention to what other people say, such as “that one’s more beautiful” or “this one’s easier”. You’ll be spending lots of energy and enthusiasm to reach your objective, so you’re the only one responsible and you should be sure of what you’re doing.

B] Know how to get close to it: mountains are often seen from far off – beautiful, interesting, full of challenges. But what happens when we try to draw closer? Roads run all around them, flowers grow between you and your objective, what seemed so clear on the map is tough in real life. So try all the paths and all the tracks until eventually one day you’re standing in front of the top that you yearn to reach.

C] Learn from someone who has already been up there: no matter how unique you feel, there is always someone who has had the same dream before you and ended up leaving marks that can make your journey easier; places to hang the rope, trails, broken branches to make the walking easier. The climb is yours, so is the responsibility, but don’t forget that the experience of others can help a lot.

D] When seen up close, dangers are controllable: when you begin to climb the mountain of your dreams, pay attention to the surroundings. There are cliffs, of course. There are almost imperceptible cracks in the mountain rock. There are stones so polished by storms that they have become as slippery as ice. But if you know where you are placing each footstep, you will notice the traps and how to get around them.

E] The landscape changes, so enjoy it: of course, you have to have an objective in mind – to reach the top. But as you are going up, more things can be seen, and it’s no bother to stop now and again and enjoy the panorama around you. At every meter conquered, you can see a little further, so use this to discover things that you still had not noticed.

F] Respect your body: you can only climb a mountain if you give your body the attention it deserves. You have all the time that life grants you, as long as you walk without demanding what can’t be granted. If you go too fast you will grow tired and give up half way there. If you go too slow, night will fall and you will be lost. Enjoy the scenery, take delight in the cool spring water and the fruit that nature generously offers you, but keep on walking.

G] Respect your soul: don’t keep repeating “I’m going to make it”. Your soul already knows that, what it needs is to use the long journey to be able to grow, stretch along the horizon, touch the sky. An obsession does not help you at all to reach your objective, and even ends up taking the pleasure out of the climb. But pay attention: also, don’t keep saying “it’s harder than I thought”, because that will make you lose your inner strength.

H] Be prepared to climb one kilometer more: the way up to the top of the mountain is always longer than you think. Don’t fool yourself, the moment will arrive when what seemed so near is still very far. But since you were prepared to go beyond, this is not really a problem.

I] Be happy when you reach the top: cry, clap your hands, shout to the four winds that you did it, let the wind - the wind is always blowing up there - purify your mind, refresh your tired and sweaty feet, open your eyes, clean the dust from your heart. It feels so good, what was just a dream before, a distant vision, is now part of your life, you did it!

J] Make a promise: now that you have discovered a force that you were not even aware of, tell yourself that from now on you will use this force for the rest of your days. Preferably, also promise to discover another mountain, and set off on another adventure.

L] Tell your story: yes, tell your story! Give your example. Tell everyone that it’s possible, and other people will then have the courage to face their own mountains.