It’s been 4 months now that I have left the house and been living in a studio apartment with a Room-mate.
And today all of a sudden my Sense of Smell is back!

It must have been the Soul Connection (read: blind date) that a well-meaning friend arranged for me – a new friend for whom I am waiting now, at this hour of the evening. “Come over for the night”, I had proclaimed royally in the text message of my phone, “We will have dinner and some booze outside, and then we can settle down to a good night sleep at home”!!!

And here it is! Am I in panic, but heck is this smell? I could smell the fish-curry that my Room-mate had prepared half-a-week ago. I don’t know how I could have missed that! When I open the door of my house to set out to buy some phenyl to clean the floor, after cleaning it with dettol and lighting incense sticks have not satisfied me, I smell the food being cooked at my neighbour’s! Aargh!!! And as I climb down the stairs and pass through lanes of my colony, I can smell different strange smells which I have never smelt before! That’s malicious!!! The whole world is working against me!!!

I come back home armed with an Air-Freshener and spray every corner of the house. This act, with the recent bunch of smells outside, has given me the confidence that my house is in fact smelling better, if not worse than the other houses in the vicinity.

I take a bath (just to scrub off all the smell of sweat). Then reach out for the towel, the only towel I have, and gosh! It stinks too! I go back to smelling my Tshirt, the bedsheets, the covers… Everything has a distinct smell of rot… And I wonder how can I allocate more money for an extra towel, clean sheets, covers, spare set of clothes for him to wear at night… etc. etc…
It is just this night that my room-mate is away, and I yearn for the warmth of a body against mine. I marvel at how my sex-hormones have heightened my primitive sense of smell, pulling me out of the slumber of my anti-depressants!

At last I decide with great philosophical pride, but with even greater disappointment. This guy better accept me the way I am, with all my stinking clothes and towels and sheets and mattresses… Or he was never meant to be mine…!

He is on the bus now, on his way here… Time to go for a second bath…. Need to hurry!!!

(Wish me luck)

To be continued…

Recently I hitched onto a friend’s car, and took the highway to travel from the Suburban Mumbai to town. It was a hot Friday afternoon outside, with the brutal tropical sun burning in the sky, however flashes of cool breeze from the car Ac Within the car, and the beautiful music kept us in a cocoon of comfort. We rode by the Coast where the blue Arabian sea faced a picturesque city bathed in the golden yellow glow of afternoon Sun. The roads were deserted here, and I wondered if the local trains were also deserted. And I knew it was not. Not all of Mumbai travel in cars. In fact, the vast majority of us Indians travel by train, survive on minimum wages, and work day in and day out.

Mumbai has been growing more and more populated day by day. With rising inflation and migration, one can see at least one elderly person abandoned in the street. Then there are young persons who appear in dirty clothes on the streets and just stare into the sky, thinking, getting madder and madder by the day.

we come home with the frenzy and panic of the outside world, to rest in our homes, where we tune in to the News which now appear to me to be more sensationally entertaining than even action movie channels. The news media picks up gory details of the most shocking and disturbing of crimes, and bombards our minds day and night.

I was once a news-crazy person. Apart from the ugliness of a city going mad, I’ve witnessed the riots of 1992-93, then followed upon media reports and gory details of Gujarat riots, the Mumbai terror attacks. Recently the vicious gang-rape in of Nirbhaya in Delhi, and now the brutal rape of a 5year old!

In the past, I picked up the most hurting of News bit, and it tore through my emotional wounds, till they hurt and bled, shrieked for attention. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I would go psychotic with rage, fear and major antagonism. Fear turned into hostility, lack of trust.

However, as I like to believe, our human genes that have survived through millions of years, broke the pattern. I increasingly began to search for beauty. I had to break my pattern of self-destruction.

Today I don’t understand why till a few years ago, I could have been easily provoked into a debate by a friend who is a Modi-admirer. I don’t know why I would get mad at anybody who was losing her cool over all that was wrong in the world and infected her emails with negativity, painting my days in gray colour. I don’t know why I had to tirade for “peace and sanity” online, on a blog (www.desicritics.org) and lose my touch with the real world.

Now I know that the change outside has to come with a change within. Only in self-reflection and self-change, de-conditioning and freedom from old-patterns, alternative lifestyle and community building, can I salvage my peace and health.

I am happy that i never bought a house when everyone of my friends were busy building their nests.I was safeguarding my freedom,without which i wud b dead today

I had bricks to buy a house, but i didn’t have a home to live with. If i had bought a house then, today i’d have been caged for life.

We didn’t deserve d money we got frm selling my dad’s dream home dat he built brick by brick wid patience,hardwork & determination,was truly only his,not our’s.

I never wanted to keep money,or even to have material possessions.I knew that these wud mean being a scapegoat for perpetual misery,evil & imprisonment.

Today i m free of remorse for d Past; and i feel happy abt d Present.

Recently i’ve been wid people who ask themselves how they feel.But it’s equally imp to ask wat 1 thinks.For Life is not just for discovering but also creating.

I’m happy that another of Life’s chapter ends here, and a new one begins. Imprisonment ends even as Duty stays. My Dreams,Rights,Individuality, finds a place.

Today I am WILLING to have my own House, my Freedom & my Right over my Life.

Today i am in charge of myself; i have d Will to Change my Life situation, reclaim my Life.

No longer wil i drag my life as a burden on my Shoulder,won’t let it b a drag.I wud lead it wid my Dreams,cast it in d mould of Discipline & cherish it as Mine.

I m no longer a child. I wil shape my destiny, without letting others affect or determine d course of MY LIFE.

I m in love wid d City again. And i finally feel Free

I have a lot of catching up to do in Life.

I left home to be on my own a month ago. I got a job and moved out. This time I left family not as a reaction but with great conviction that it is a healthy thing to do.
Life has taken me through another experience where I had a brief fling with the search for God, and now I see how conditioned I had been with religion, idols, beliefs, programming. The change has been automatic. I SEE it.

You were the Inspiration, that somebody can love me, somebody can be out there not to trap me, or to play games with me, or allow me to play games with, who could hold me as I am… these were these realizations that inspired me… Perhaps I am still in love with that idea… for if it is originally Love, would I be even expressing it to you before we have met in person again…? I ask myself and don’t find an answer. So I wait, not knowing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z7-C1bOja0

This Song from Iran… so much describes what Golden Boy wants to say to all of you..

I never used a mask

I am just passing by
Across this fleeting world

I don’t intend to stop
Tell me, who would walk
when they can fly?

My fate is to keep walking
My memories
Are like a ship’s wake in the sea

What I have, I give away
I speak up my mind
Take me just like I am

And it goes weightless
My gypsy heart
That only knows how to beat
In the opposite direction
Don’t try to tie me
Or to tame me
I am the one who chooses
how to make a mistake

Make the most of my stay
Because even if I arrived yesterday
I can be gone tomorrow
For I’m gypsy
For I’m gypsy

I am still learning
with every kiss
and with every scar

I have come to understand something
Since I have tripped so many times
I already know how to fall

And it goes weightless
My gypsy heart
That only knows how to beat
In the opposite direction
Don’t try to tie me
Or to tame me
I am the one who chooses
how to make a mistake

Make the most of my stay
Because even if I arrived yesterday
I can be gone tomorrow
For I’m gypsy

Let’s go and see
Because life is meant to be enjoyed
It’s normal to be afraid of
The things you don’t know

Take me and let’s go
Because life is meant to be enjoyed
It’s normal to be afraid of
The things you don’t know
I want to see you fly
I want to see you fly

And it goes weightless
My gypsy heart
That only knows how to beat
In the opposite direction
Don’t try to tie me
Or to tame me
I am the one who chooses
how to make a mistake

Make the most of my stay
Because even if I arrived yesterday
I can be gone tomorrow
For I’m gypsy

Samuel’s book made a lot of sense, as did Krishnamurti.

I was ready to wait. Was ready to wait chaste without giving away my heart to the first person available for love, was ready to wait till the perfect genuine love appeared. I was ready to wait chaste, without sex, till I had the perfect person I could share my love with. ‘Listening into the Heart of Things’ gave me a firm conviction.

I’d surrendered myself totally. Life was no longer what I needed, but what it wanted me to do. For three months it wanted me to do nothing, for I felt it worthless to do anything – For what? I thought.

Till Life sucked me into its influx of change, and it was time that my family decided to let me go free, so that in a long time- the free desire to work, the will to live Life, blossomed in my heart.

Today: Exactly 23days after I started a whole new life all over again from the scratch, away from bro and mom, on my own, in my own rented place.

I am running on debt, yet life is worth living; I know why people yearn for Freedom.

Yet the consequences of all the years of suffering – self-inflicted or circumstantial- psychiatric medication that keeps me addicted, an inability to keep jobs for more than 4-6 months, keep me concerned about my job, my new found life and freedom. I have to be able to sustain myself now. This has to be the Freedom from the Old.

The Old Raven that went out from Ark of Noah, represents the Old Life, the Old Self. But the white Dove that returned with a leaf of olive (that sustains itself in a flood), is the New Life for a people who accept the dominion of Jesus after Baptism in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

So why not get baptized right away?

It is not that easy! I met Pastors, listened to evangelists, attended Parish Service, got myself informed about the dogmas like the different views on Trinity to start with.

But I am not worried about the Dogma. I don’t care. I need God’s manna. “Can you give it to me? Can I feel God’s presence, His Grace when now I stand in face of Trials? Can I now expect God to be a partner in carrying my burdens, to hold my hand, to guide me, to lead me, to protect me, no matter how many hills I have to climb, no matter how deep the valleys!”

Today the Pastor gives me a prayer today that opens my heart to Christ. I have answered Him, opened the door of my heart for Him to step in. Now Jesus will work His ways, while I remain with his flock of sheep. The Lord’s shaft, his Loving and Forgiving heart, his Fatherly nature would take charge of every part of my life – my Job, my Life, my Relationships.

The recent jump that I had taken without the guidance of the right Pastor – the hurried attending of Bible study sessions, studying the bible at home, seeking different pastors to look for the Lord, had resulted in a fall- loss of Faith, two steps back.
“It is a steady process”. First I had to welcome Jesus into my Life. A simple baby step. I don’t need to get excited. I just need to take care of my self, attend Parish Service every Sunday evening, and be in the counsel of the Pastor.

Next I’d attend the Foundation Class, and then become ready for the Holy Spirit, whereby I would confess my sins and accept Jesus as my Saviour and Lord, and commit to lead the Life that the Holy Ghost would lead me to live, as per the Will of the Father- the God. Then the Holy Spirit would be in charge.

I am more than ready. I want Healing. I want Him. I want to surrender totally. I have nothing left that the Devil would want to snatch away from me.

I dedicate myself, my body, soul, and spirit to you Sweet Jesus. Make good use of me. Let Thy will be done, not mine. Amen.

Empty evenings! For now, that is! Soon I will be joining the Yoga class here. Perhaps then the days won’t be having unwanted excess leisure.

Not that Loneliness worries me anymore. It is a friend now. I read books, rest, go out for a walk, chat with neighbours. Yes, in the last few months I have started socializing; liking it to the core. Frania, my ex-counsellor had always told me that I am a people’s man. I am discovering that I am indeed so.

I live independently now. I am no longer living with bro and mom. And that makes me feel free and fearless.

A few days ago, my recently gained maturity (so I would like to think) was put to test when my new neighbours invited me most graciously to their Evangelical Parish’s 15^th Aniversary. As to be expected at any Church – the sermon from the Pastor, turned out to be anti-other religions, anti-gays, anti-catholic church, anti-“evil” and a “guarantee that ‘worse times were ahead in this year. I wonder at times why people like to relish in the thought that they are ‘the persecuted’. Perhaps it is their way to deal with uncertainty, and suspicion that arises in our hearts ever so often in this divided world.

It was the love that I saw in them, the rejoicing Community that assembled in the air-conditioned Parish, that made me consider attending the “gathering”; not just that but even an openness to the idea that it might be a good idea to ‘find the Spirit of a living God’, to be able “to see” Signs, to be able to love genuinely and help others out of an eagerness “in the Spirit of the Lord”, and yes! most of all to be healed completely so as to be weaned away from my anti-depressant medication.

But in a couple of days- I was up on my conviction that Jesus, the Nazarene, wouldn’t have excluded people- he was a person who included the murderers, the lepers, the Condemned in the folds of his Compassion. Dogmas, that we find in Religions, are a sign of unhealthy coping mechanisms with fear that reside in our hearts.

So, I am back enjoying the life as it comes- with all its revelations and surprises, and also the dullness in which lies most of its teachings.

And yes! There is a lot of laundry at home that is yet to be taken care of!

That’s it for now for Golden Boy. After years of stagnation, learning the hard way, but the honest way, the fruits of endless therapy with Uma, and all that reading from Samuel’s books that I recently lapped up greedily in the last couple of months, Patience and being grounded in my conviction, I am finally living as a human being ought to be – free, & with discipline, with the Will to live and live better – on the way of Truth, Working at my job as a way of thanksgiving to life in a manner that pleases the heart, cherishing life, Nature, the world and its people.

Filling time with Sex, Fantasies or Worries, or other escape-routes, are out! A new Virtue, that JK would appreciate, living in the Now, has found its way in.

And I know that I don’t need decadent religions to live my life. Life is free. Life is good.

The soft August sunshine plays hide and seek with the clouds. At first glance I become aware of the beauty of the day, the cawing of the crows, the distant jocund voices of children playing in a distant playground, and then the expanse of the large canopy of sky above. Birds chirp, the breeze plays on the skin, the wet clothes on the clothesline wait still. As I write here, sitting on the balcony, a lad somewhere nearby whistles away a song…

My awareness grows and I am aware of mom chopping vegetables in the living room, seated on the floor by the television, watching TV programs being broadcasted from a far away place at the south of this country, her maiden town, where her heart and soul still wanders. It is her ghost that languishes around us here in this far-away city, caged in a body that has aged in all these years. Her heart is still young, back in her homeland, in a realm which is free of the ravages of time. Beneath the wrinkled dry skin of an old woman, lingers a playful girl of 15 – innocent, carefree, immaculate… Her ghost hangs around the house, asking but a few questions, however no question so strong as to challenge her status-quo, nothing so dire to ruffle her life.

At my age, I dare to question my life, want to take life by its horns. Questions that in their wake set the hearts of an entire generation of young people afire, to rustle the dusts on the streets, as countless feet march to question archaic institutions, authority, systems.
Yet Questions don’t have a life of their own; they feed on our lives. And as every single year rolls by, there are multitudes of weaker, older soldiers who retire, passing on the torch of Revolution to newer, younger hands.

Do these questions ever bring answers? My observation says that they don’t. The questions only provoke young restless hearts into bringing revolutions in the society, bring radical Changes in their wake.

The world changes with every such new revolution, but with each passing generation the fundamental questions of life  have remained the same. They have never been answered. The army of people who retire, pass on their torches of Revolution, settle down with their unanswered questions, perfectly at peace with them.

These fundamental questions about life, about our very existence and relationships, our destiny and our say in it, have no answers. Even so, they still need to be asked by every generation; even if later, the veterans have to carry these questions to their graves, content that they did dare to ask, content that finally they did make truce with life and its questions.

However over the year, after passing through yet another alchemical transformation of a romantic heartbreak (romantic encounters always kicked me to another low, another spiritual high), and suffering in the fire of inner spiritual turmoil…. I now see the absurdity of taking stances on any issue.

Writing at Desicritics.org was a unique experience- a collective blog that is no longer existent in cyberspace, where there were no boundaries to what one could express.  There I experienced how the power of words, the high voltage of of emotions, and the high intoxication on one’s political ideology could cut sharply through one’s psyche. In the beamlight of cyberspace, I used to get too carried away with words, opinions, and extreme disagreements.

Looking back, I see the absurdity of it all! May be, I won a few hearts over to my ideologies. Maybe a few had to retreat from their ideologies owing to my sharp use of sarcastic words and expressions. Yet in the whole game, even I was equally wounded, often brutally, in the war of words, sometimes by other writers and at times by commentators. Those were feverish days, and looking back I feel exhausted today for then I was possessed with the ghosts of conflict and war, even when I was not writing. I wonder if it is another year that has been added to my age, or a real mellowing down within, that makes me wonder at the high energy I possessed in those days.

So why do I write all this here?

Just to say that Golden boy today does not wish to engage in any war of words. I think now that words can only inspire people’s mind, to war, to peace. Only when words come from a deep source of wisdom, without filtering through one’s own prejudices, conditioning and strong ideologies, does it affect positive change in society. The Pen being a Sword, is no theoritical hyperbole. It is a fact, and the responsibility on both sides, on the part of the writer and the reader, is great.

-x-x-x-

In the last one year, even as the spring of my expression through words had completely dried up, I was passing through a great inner turmoil.

There could be no one truth in a democracy, take it as boon or bane. So writers need to do a great soul-searching.

Only words that can touch on Truth, can be bi-partisan, never clinging to any ideology, describing things as the way one perceives it, can do justice with the art and duty of writing. But even with all the soul-searching and being torched by the fire of one’s Truth, what would emerge would be words tinted by the limitations of being caged in one’s physical self. I think that is the greatest of Human Dilemma and limitation of being a writer.

-x-x-x-

For me now, as I see it, the spring of expression has started flowing once again. So if there is the inspiration to write, it would be unjust to limit its flow.

I would like to think that this time, I understand the great responsibility that comes with expressing of words. However I also understand that the sole responsibility of expression does not lie completely with the writer. Even the reader has the responsibility in discriminating between what he feels genuine and that which he finds are shallow words, words expressed in a moment of reaction.

I feel that ultimately, we the one’s called to write, need to do the best we can, and the Truth will do its work through us. Only that one has to be doubly careful in penning down and reading words, in a world which is increasingly finding itself torn in a conflict with its own self.

Ironically, while what we write could be scary and ugly at times, for so are the realities today, the measure of Truth in our words would be how closer do our words help Humanity move forward towards Honesty, Love and Beauty.

P.S: I should run now, for the hands of the clock tick away, and more I stay here at the cyber cafe, the more I will be monetarily charged. So bye for now.

It’s a different day today- after so many months… when I have something to say. My soul had possessed my heart for long, there were no moorings, no search, no desires. The mind rattled inside the cage of my body, hissed at everyone who tried to move closer towards me, keeping friends and foe away. I was folded away in the dungeons of my soul, waiting an expression. I don’t know what this penitence means.

I don’t know if this is that expression, that springs up on its own as if it has a life of its own. When I am lost in the wilderness, the expression dies away.
I wonder why at the Call from the Mosque for the faithfuls to gather, at this lone cabin in the cyber café, in a remote suburban town of Mumbai, I should suddenly feel like writing again on the beams of electronic light again?

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Pathanjali is dead. He was 32, son of my Yoga masters – Mrs.Hamsa Mehta and Dr.Yogendraji, of the Yoga Institute.
The news of his death caught me by surprise, spoken casually by a friend. The Yoga Institute has meant a lot to me. Among many other people, the two masters here, have deeply affected my life positively.

When I heard of his death, a sudden gloom descended on my heart. I could feel a shrill cry within me muffled by my surprised exterior composed self.

Why would I want to howl at the death of this young man, I have never seen but had only heard of? Is it because I have been in touch with the Institute, with Hansaben, Yogendraji, and their daughter-in-law through their classes and Sunday morning Parisamvad at the Institute? Or did it have to do with the unusual peace that descended on my soul every time I walked through the lawns of this simple though radiant Institute?

Or was it Death again, the ultimate Stranger who had paid his last visit among people whom I know, that left me startled?

I don’t know. But the candle that I burnt on returning home, and the sitting in silence, helped my disheaveled heart. It sank to touch sadness.

Pathanjali passed away. And perhaps I wept not for Pathanjali, but for his relatives that he left behind, for their loss.

May God grant his soul – Peace.

The News on his demise at the Institute’s blog: (http://theyogainstitutemumbai.blogspot.in/2012/07/sad-demise_24.html)