goldenboy

On days when there is hardly a drop of water in the tap here in Mira rd; and water-suppliers have booking-lists full, guys like me wake up to a weekend with no shower. They spend half the day in long-walks and long telephone calls to the water-suppliers in the locality to fetch a tank-ful of water at home. Welcome to the real India.

And yesterday, even though I succeeded in pleading a water-supplier into selling water to my family at double the price, the water was muddy enough to be used only to flush. So went without showers yesterday.

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I read Sukhmani Sahib (a holy book of the Sikhs) at late nights, after I reach my mom’s place after-work. The book tells me how only God can decide whether to lift you enough to fall in Love with Him, for Salvation.

And I wonder if I ever will fall in love with Him as enough to gain my Salvation.

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Meanwhile, at work I try to row through rough waters.

All those reality shows on TV wherein a dozen people are put together in an apartment to test the limits of their patience are ‘reality’ after all.

In a group of 16 adult people, at office, having different back-grounds, mentality and behaviour-patterns, there is never a day for me without struggle.

And what makes the famous kid at school, the rebel at college, have such a tough-time at work?

Perhaps just that. My Past.

I am still caught-up in mental attitudes (expectations, generalizations, notions, thinking patterns) from my past.

Strong emotions like fear, anger, jealousy and love wells up in the training-class everyday as new love-hate relationship patterns emerge in the class as we are forced to interact with each other.

So how should I deal with all these emotions welling up inside me?

Fantasize myself to be a Saint and suppress these emotions; wear a smile on my face?

Or let them well-up inside me and react (snap, lose my cool, hit back).

Perhaps the way seems to be mid-way. Let them well up within, feel and look at them and not react. Know them to be the Volcanoes that erupt as the earth flexes its muscles to adjust to newer climates; knowing that the seething lava would also bring with it fertile soil in time.

That I think is the mark of a tough guy, and the secret-formula for all the winners of those reality-shows on TV.

“For what we speak also, by the same sense of the flesh Thou hearest; yet wouldest not Thou have the syllables stay, but fly away, that others may come, and thou hear the whole.”

-The Confessions of Saint Augustine

What I write today here are mere syllables; if you can catch the gist (the whole) you will hear what I wanted to express here today…

Today I had four missed calls on my mobile. Two from a younger guy who wants to go into a gay relationship with me. Two from an elder guy who lives alone in another part of the city whom I was supposed to meet today and decided not to.

For some reason, even though I was going on a one-night stand after almost a year, I felt this was not what was happening ‘naturally’ to me.

For some reason this seemed like the same old castle I built by the power of my own assumptions about happiness and insecurities. The way most things are built in the world now-a-days- based on insecurities and fantasies, assumptions and escapism.

Somehow, even though I missed the opportunity of finding an ideal partner in somebody out there who could be waiting for me, I feel the time was not right, that it was not ‘universally ordained’, that I was pushing the Universe into acting my way… building castles in sand that would be doomed to be destroyed by some wave soon, like all the other castles I built in my life.

For once, I want to wait. For once, I want to give life a chance. For once, I want to feel ‘ready’, as if that was ‘the life’ I was called on here to participate in. For once, I want to stop chasing dreams, and live out life as it is handed out to me, as I was destined to live it.

So that at the end of the day, I would not turn out to be a rebel without a cause, chasing empty dreams handed out to me which simply were not mine.

Yesterday, when the train left the platform as I proceeded to meet my date, I felt my body weak and there was something missing in my heart- the enthusiasm. And I retraced my step back home, confused. Till this morning, I felt it was more of my depression that was to blame for this.

But now I feel I am on the threshold of a wholly new way of living… where I don’t run to make things happen, they happen. They happen, not because I chase after them out there, but because I take care of my heart, mind and body …my life.

Sorry dad, I rebelled then, but I had to. That was what I needed to then.

And sorry love, I did not now, for this is what I need to now.

What is it about festivals that make one’s heart rejoice?

I woke up to just another weekend morning today, and the thought of today being Baisakhi (the Punjabi Harvest Festival) set my heart aflame with excitement.

Is it my new-found love for Punjabi culture and language? The books that I visualize reading in the near future written by the likes of Amrita Pritam and Kushwant Singh, that will bring the people of a region lot more closer to me? Is it the joy that a Punjabi feels in his heart when he speaks his language, when he listens to his songs? Is it the joy that breeds between two hearts when two Punjabi friends meet with a warm embrace and say ‘Sat Sri Akal’ (the Punjabi greeting meaning ‘God is True and Timeless’)?

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And though my heart rejoices today with the joys of the earthly realm, it would be warm with fervent prayers tomorrow as I would go to temple for Vishu (the Malayali New Year day).

The land of Bhangra sets my feet to the musical beats of an earthly joy, and the land of the Gods sets my heart aflame with divinity.

Proud to be born here, my motherland- India!

Lately I had been too controlled in my writings here. Strict parameters on where the stuff came from- my mind or heart, whether they were factual or just assumptions etc were uppermost in my mind when I wrote.

For a change, I want to let go of that control.

For once, I just want to write without knowing what I am actually going to write here.

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Violence – was the one thing that I have feared most. Raw violence that’s intended to hurt the body, but ends up affecting the psyche more than anything else.

There has been a change lately. I have found more of my masculine side, more resilience, more courage, more strength within in face of tough circumstances. 

However there are times when Violence can sneak out of nowhere and threaten you staring stark in your face. And at such times, though my muscles gear up for a manly combat, wisdom tells me to cool down… that true maturity lies not in combat but sanely walking away from a violent scene.

And even when I write here, my mind wants to fib circumstances wherein violence could be the only way out, and I wonder what would I do then? How far is Gandhi’s virtues of non-violence practical. Isn’t violence too a part of the human nature? Are we then suppressing a vital energy every time we walk away from a fight?  

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Uma had her experiments in Community-building. We, a group of around 8-10 people would meet at her apartment and try to see what feelings we felt in the company of the other people, what were the thought and relationship dynamics within the group. We intended to be aware about what stopped us from really getting to know the other person, from accepting him/her, what emotions/thoughts the other person evoked in us and how it was instrumental in getting closer or away from that person. Was there an element of projections/ prejudices involved in these comfort/discomfort levels we had to face, within the group? And if there were, was there a way to learn from it and transcend it?  

I opted out of the group before its last session. Strong feelings of hatred, anger, insecurity would greet me when I was there. It seemed that it would take an eternity… or perhaps on second thoughts, it was too much for me.

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But life is not content in letting you escape out of narrow lanes. She chases you into your comfort zones and gets you by your collar, throwing you face to face with things you want to run away from. It is at times the best teacher you can have, who is not content letting you run away from her battles.

So looking for bread and butter, I ended up in a training-room full of people from my generation-group, each having their own games and battles within, each trying to survive within the group. 

A girl who was sweet to me from the very beginning, turned into a bitter enemy one fine day and I was left gaping at the sudden change in her. I became aware of three smaller groups forming within the group. There was offence taken at the slightest unintended instant, anger built up fast, and boiled over in sharp rebuke or ugly confrontations.

One day, unable to bear these anymore, I walked up to our lady soft-skills trainer and requested her for a private meeting. In her cabin, I told her how I was being affected by the back-biting and playing of games by this colleague of mine, I told her I could lose my cool any moment.  

And she told me, “why do you have to get affected by whether she likes you or not? And if she is spreading venom against you around let her. That’s her part of bad Karma. You maintain your cool. You be good, and everything else will be taken care of. Gandhism always works.”

I was not sure about the Gandhian Philosophy till then. However at that moment, something in my guts felt so right. Yes, she was right. Why did I have to worry so much about what was being spoken about me. Why couldn’t I be good to everyone, regardless of whether they liked me or not. To each one his own.

Perhaps Gandhi had a lot more for us to understand, than what our understanding or interests would like us to believe.

All that is needed is to be open to life and take it as it comes, to learn from it.

I do have dreams at night, but have stopped dreaming during the day.

I do not willingly do it. It has just become a second nature to me. I don’t weave fantasies, I don’t dream how tomorrow should be anymore.

It just happened. The boy who dreamed dreams and made them a reality (and lay weeping finding no joy in its completion) today has no dreams to build his future on. He just wakes up, waits till the afternoon to go to work, and then at the strike of the hour leaves his mom’s place to reach his office on time.

So when the weekend arrives, and there is no clock to follow… he wonders what to do with his time, tries to call a couple of his old friends who have long left him, only to be met with rebuke over the phone. He then spends the two days wondering what to do.

He no longer tries to learn Punjabi because he feels it would be too much stress. For that matter, he does not even attempt at reading the couple of books he has yet to finish. He waits like a soldier in times of peace.

He does not pray fervently anymore, because prayer has dried up within him. He does not watch TV, because it bores him. All he does is, wait… wait for Monday when he would have the clock to guide him, to work, to the cafeteria, to tests, to the training room…

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So are there no dreams in the life of the GoldenBoy anymore?

No dreams. Just a vision. Of a strong foundation. On which he would build his house. The house of dreams.

But till the foundation is laid, he will lay low, and weave no fantasies.

The vision of a strong foundation leads him on…