Musings

Lake Lanier off Exit 16 on GA 400 seems to be a place out of my imagination.
I have always longed for a place like this. A lake, waters lapping up, pine trees, a few benches and solitude. And here it is just a five minute drive from home. Sometimes life has a way of giving you just what you need.

I have resolved to go there everyday while I am here. I am leaving in twenty days and will perhaps never come here again, so I don't want to miss a thing. I sit on the benches and read, gaze at the water that comes lapping up and walk Rocket sometimes. I want to remember every little detail to know each nook and cranny every curve of the lake..the evening lights the morning moods.


Sometimes noisy teenagers drive in and they rush into the lake with their boats. Never pausing for a moment at the shore, which suits me just fine. The shore is always quiet. Bikers come and ride up the slopes for a good cardio.

Today there was a Mexican family at the lake. the parents in their early twenties, a toddler and a puppy. A little further a couple in their forties sat holding hands. He looked like a biker because of his sidelocks and tattoos. She was more of a housewife, a mom. I wonder if they are partners or just old sweethearts stealing a few moments from life. Moments that are not theirs.
Sometimes when I am at the lake after dark I see an elderly man standing by his pickup truck. What brings him here alone at this hour I wonder. Maye it is only a breath of fresh air he is looking for..maybe it is solace. Maybe he is also trying to make memories or perhaps reliving them.

Even the drive back from the lake is magical. The small intersections leading to roads faintly visible through the foliage, roads full of promise. I do not wish to drive through those roads, the intrigue and promise is more alluring. There are barns and open spaces and sometimes I see horses grazing and then just round the corner comes the small intersection that leads to my house. No promises of magical places here just the beaten track that leads home...

Scribble Away

“After the bare requisites of living and reproducing, man wants most to leave some record of himself, a proof, perhaps, that he has really existed. He leaves his proof on wood, on stone, or on the lives of other people. This deep desire exists in everyone, from the boy who scribbles on a wall to the Buddha who etches his image in the race mind. Life is so unreal. I think that we seriously doubt that we exist and go about trying to prove that we do.”

John Steinback, The Pastures of Heaven

Now this logic explains perfectly the defacing of historical monuments in India. Only in this case it is adults scribbling away to glory in the hope of leaving their mark for posterity.

Shahjahan had built the Taj Mahal but lesser mortals like us without the resources of the Emperor at our disposal can proclaim our love by scratching hearts with cupid's arrows passing right through in historical places.

Think of it…a few decades later when your descendants visit the same place they would be pleasantly surprised to see the names of their forefather etched into immortality.

And if your love does not make it to marriage and subsequent progeny atleast history will bear witness to the fact that You came, you saw, and you loved.

These sweet nothings of today might assume historical significance tomorrow.... seriously (no?). Didn't Ram and his siblings chisel out stone at Mahabalipuram and don't we flock to see that today ?

Archaeologists go to great lengths to find cave paintings and hieroglyphics of the ancient cave dwellers. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that some spoil sport cave dwellers did protest against this so-called defacement of natural beauty.It is just a matter of time I say. One age’s meat is another age’s poison.

And when the day comes the heart sign will gain immense importance. Archaeologists and sociologists will draw conclusions about our lifestyle and society from these markings. And if they can decode it correctly then we will be portrayed as a very loving people. So scribble on all ye tourists.

After the Stone Age and Iron Age all hail the coming of the Love Age!

Watching a movie alone.

"As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.


Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.


Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.


And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean."

9.37 pm, 23 Nov 2006, Atlanta Georgia


Thanks Giving holiday today. The city streets are practically deserted. I have been in the hotel all day long, reading, chatting then sleeping a little.
Get up around 6 pm...maybe I can drop in at a colleague place or maybe just go somewhere by myself.
I set out in my car to drive around a little...no particular plans. Maybe go to the Indian Store or grab some dinner at Panda Express. The shops, restaurants look closed as I drive by and then more out of habit then anything else I go into AMC and Barnes & Nobles. Quite a few people here.

I am just in time for the 7.10 pm show of Stranger Than Fiction. I grab a coke and pick a nice seat in the auditorium.A few trailers later the movie begins. Two hours of gripping storytelling...the message in the end ?

Well simply that life is worth living, even if just for a taste of a Bavarian cookie...sometimes the mundane and the routine things which we usually overlook are things that inadvertently fill our hearts with joy. The taste of brownie bites, reading poetry, your first crush...all worth living for, even if life is not always smooth sailing.

Clueless

"I can get no satisfaction..."

The lines keep playing in my head over and over again...and no it’s not because I can't get any girlie action!!
It is simply because I don't know what will give me satisfaction.
Is it a family, a house full of kids and a life full of chores ?
Though that might be the need of the hour but I am certain that vegetating like that can keep me happy for a few months maybe even a few years but beyond that it does not seem likely.
One day I would surely look back on the years gone past and contemplate that I have missed out on so much..
In the words of Vikram Seth:

"Awake for hours and staring at the ceiling
Through the unsettled stillness of the night
He grows possessed of the obsessive feeling
That dawn has come and gone and brought no light."

So then should I immerse myself in my career ? Get a higher education and a cushy job ?
Well I have spent 21 years of my life studying and the next 4 yrs working...and what do I have to show for that.
A salary at the end of the month and an endless wait for the next weekend. Is it because my job does not present the challenges I hoped for ?
Most likely that is a problem with our education system or society, but the chain reaction that it has triggered is that I now believe that breaking my head for a higher educations entails only rigors and no rewards. And a chushy job translates to another hackneyed 9-5 routine. A new set of bosses to work for and a new set of colleagues.
Does not seem much different from my present situation, does it ? And then I would regret not having spent time with family and on a healthy personal life. And yet again Vikram Seth's lines seem apt..

Well maybe then I should stick to the boring job that I have and start a family. That way, I will have the best of both worlds....or is it the worst ?
Being content with this looks perfectly simple. But if this existence makes me feel purposeless then this is no solution. I would compare myself to friends who are into rocket science or some such high end technology stuff. And I would also compare myself to people who are immersed in their family and are happy.
The trouble is that these are two extremes and no one can be stretched so much as to be perfect in both.
Maybe many of the people in these situations are not happy themselves...what do we know ?

The trick is not in doing what other people do or what society deems as the right thing to do, but rather in finding your passion and following it.
If I had a passionate interest in anything that would be my life's goal and the rest of the things would be peripheral.
Artists, scientists, great writers all follow their passion with a mad devotion, and perhaps they taste the nectar of satisfaction or at least momentary highs of a job well done.

Well then the problem is fairly simple we just need to discover our passion. But the solution is not easy to come by, may even take a lifetime.
And what if some of us have no passion at all?

Maybe its only temporal things for such people then like sex, booze, drugs that can do the trick. It is the shortcut to satisfaction even if it lasts only for a fleeting moment.
No wonder then that so many people would vouch for these shortcuts!