what remains ... in the meantime

In between, time has flowed. Bags have been packed once more. Goodbyes have filled the air of the airport. And, bags have been reopened in a new city. A new home is settling in to the familiar chores and music of life. The grand festival of the Goddess Durga happened in the bustling city in the mind. The entire batch of Puja Chronicles have been brought to life.

The sameness of the events, the sameness of the memory of the days, have surprised the self that consciously attempts to live in the 'now'. The fun and the frolic of the festival days seem to come back, each year, with a strange sense of familiarity. And yet, the familiarity does not breed boredom or contempt. It is like a self-sustaining fountain - the same joy that drops at the pool of regular life below the fountain of festival, rises again. With a new force. With a new vigour.

Nothing amazes the mind more than this cycle of re-formation, of re-vitalisation. Except maybe, the cycle of new goodbyes that we have to bid. Last year, on dashami, the final day of the Durga Puja, or the festival of goddess Durga, the family had bid adieu to a well-loved human being. This year, on the same day, the world bid adieu to Steve Jobs.

For many, Jobs is an entrepreneurial icon. For many, the man is an exceptional case of achievement. For some, he is a demi-god. For some, he is not good enough as a human being. For this humble blogger, he is none of the above. For the blogger, Steve Jobs is the man who gave a speech, at Stanford University in 2005, that changed the blogger's life, forever. 

His speech involved stories from his life and the realisations that emerged from them. The blogger remembers the words, just as many of you do. "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future."  Trust in what the heart says. Listen to its voice. More so when it directs towards the difficult road. 

Two and a half years ago, the blogger had found these words. Then she lived with the ignominy of an unfinished academic degree, that she supposed was her passport to the future. An unbearable agony of incompetence had set in. In a foreign land, she cribbed about what will never be. And then, the most beautiful and powerful thing happened in her life. This blog was born. "You've got to find what you love." She realised her love for words anew. 

What Jobs initiated in her soul, a supremely magnetic lady sealed it this summer. As she sat with the blogger on the couch in her sitting-room, she listened intently to the blogger's plans of doing a doctorate. She heard the blogger's ecstatic descriptions of her creative writing adventures. She shared her joy and appreciation at reading one of it. And then she put forward a question. Why do you want to spend all your energy and time in redeeming what didn't happen? The blogger realised something she has been avoiding all these years - that, the unfinished degree was the reason she was pitching for the doctorate. Not for the love of literature. 

"You've got to find what you love." And when you find it, you simply keep doing it. The blogger realised, at that point of time, what the speaker meant when he said, "There is no reason not to follow your heart." Death comes in so many forms. The fear of failure is possibly the most potent one in our everyday lives. "It is Life's change agent." It truly is. It is a finality that you can despair of and wait for all your life. Or, you can use it as charger to charge up the batteries of true potential and love that lies in each one of you and go on to live a life that made you feel good about yourself.

Steve Jobs may be missed otherwise, but to this humble blogger, those words at the Stanford University in 2005, will remain forever as true and as powerful as it was in 2005.

You can listen to the speech here. Or, read it here. 

Image: a flower that fell to the ground, and is still blooming. Taken at a monastery in Ha Noi, Viet Nam. 2011.

Does Spring spring out of nowhere?

According to the Encyclopedia of Religion and the Encyclopedia Britannica, the timing of April Fool's Day is directly related to the arrival of Spring, when nature 'fools' humans with erratic weather.
 
as if spring arrives on a date that you can mark in your calendar! as if, till the 31st of March, the buds are trained to remain shut and at the dawn of the 1st of April,(amidst the twittering of the birds) they march to full bloom, as kids dressed as flowers would do in a performance as the teacher animated the movements from the side-screen! 

Spring doesn't really sprint into our lives, does it? 

In hot and humid Kolkata, spring makes it presence felt through the soft winds blowing through the thickly populated city. It is in the air that you can smell the arrival of spring. In such times, our neigbour's mango tree brings in the smell of the juicy mangoes that will populate its branches a few weeks from now. The 'mukul' (the flower which will become mangoes) have a tantalising smell. 

mangoes-to-be ... 'mukul'

The kids passing through the lane look up with expectant eyes. The mango tree's human neigbours looked at it with longing. Maybe one summer storm called 'Kalbaisakhi' (since the storm usually happens in the Bengali month of Baishakh, it has gained this name - the black storm of Baishakh) will make several seed-flowers to fall (unfulfilled mangoes ... sigh!). The owners of the mango tree, their neighbours and all the people passing the lane would mourn for the untimely loss. Spring is also such cruel times.

flowers that bloom from the soggy earth

In countries which suffer devoid-of-the-sun winters, spring arrives with sogginess. As the snow thaws, (and doesn't return anymore, thankfully), the soil becomes soggy - wet and dirty as mud. The few green stems and leaves that had been covered with snow all this while looks maligned. They lie in a wet heap. And then, suddenly, you see flowers blooming out of nowhere. 

flowers that bloom in light

The flowers appear because of the increase in light. Or, it seems that the soil, that was suffocated with snow for so long, feels relieved as the weight of the snow melts into life-sustaining water. If you look at the muddy, soggy soil for long, you can have the feeling that the soil is quenching its thirst, soaking in the pleasure of being able to breathe freely once again. 

so, is it spring now?

May be, the true arrival of spring happens as the new green shoots appear, the new leaves curled in sleep appear on the branches that have been starkly empty for long. 

up above in its

The birds too have returned to inspect the branches that can be used for making nests. They hop around the trees and shrubs, identifying the perfect branch, swiftly breaking it in its beak and flying off to where it plans to have its nest. 

Perhaps, the vitality of all things natural is the actual harbinger of spring. 


With not much ado, Lustrous Lives too seeks vitality ... in words and patterns. Hence the new look. 
Please do stop by to share your opinion on the same. Please share your opinion on whether the posts are reader-friendly in appearance, or not. All opinions (both favourable and unfavourable) are heartily welcome.

Wish you all a vitality of the mind, the body and the soul this spring :) 

Images: "mangoes-to-be ... 'mukul'" by my uncle Subhendu, a few years back. Copyright retained by him. The rest of the images are shot here and there in Lund by the blogger. spring 2011.


 

Dreamscapes

Her white sari is swollen with the wind. Her small round face moves towards you. The carvings on her face sit benignly together with her twinkling eyes. Her eyes are shining and yet seemed to hide some thing. You look into her eyes. Her glance is moulded in love. You feel that her love is different from all that you have ever experienced before. Her love causes a strange burning sensation. It is like the way you feel when the empty stomach experiences the acids - acids which feeds on food and gnaws into the walls in their absence. They are not angry when they hurt you. They merely live the way they are supposed to. By feeding on others.

You feel her love is not only like this.

Her love seems to create the same tickling of the senses as the fluttering of a mosquito on an open wound. Her love is sensational. It envelopes you like the fire that welcomes your body, retracing its origins among the elements in an old burning ghat of an ancient city. Nothing much has changed since the time Marquez first saw the girl rising with the clothes, flying in the wind, and then, vanishing into the elements. You feel comfortable and calm as she looks at you. To disappear is but a natural phenomenon, she says. Her lips move and you hear her, but nothing is audible yet. A few faces float by, chanting the song of inevitability. You can feel the glistening drops trickling down their faces. As her smile blends with the nowhere, like the smile of the Chesire cat, the last link becomes a myth.

It is now free and floating in the cauldron from which the visions of history arise.

 

 Image: a bird in flight and a sun in the clouds, on way to Helsingor, Sweden. by self.