Venting Out…

In last two decades, or even more, I have experienced loneliness in different forms. The disguises of loneliness are many; both conceivable and inconceivable. It’s unbearable, no matter in which disguise loneliness attacks me. Its intensity is always focused, and therefore, exalted. It leaves me stranded in the state of anxiety. It’s awful: short breath, sweaty palms, a weird sensation in the heart region, agonizing emotions. My hunger for food and that for compassion are inversely affected during this state of anxiety. The desire for food diminishes, and the need for compassion rises. I experience a suffocating pain in the throat each time I swallow spoonful of wheat porridge. The twitch travels down to the diaphragm along with the wheat porridge. I stop eating. To feed myself with compassion I take deep breaths, but soon I loose focus. It’s so much easier to stimulate pain. Isn’t it?

In the long course of emotional ping-pong, for the first time I experienced a few moments of stillness yesterday. But those moments were smeared with strong indifference toward the pain that I, myself, caused to a loved one. In my struggle to deal with the individual pain, have I become ruthless with others?

Filed under: Life

Animated Oxymoron

You may not be as amused as I was when it happened; anyway, let me tell you about this incident. I was waiting for a friend’s arrival at the IGI airport in Delhi when it happened. The flight was late by an hour, so I was gadding about in the waiting lounge. My legs don’t like to toil without a reason, so they began to ache. It’s their way of disapproving an act they don’t like.  To make them feel better, I seated myself in the chair next to a woman from a Middle Eastern country. The woman was clad in a black burka, with only her face showing.  A huge suitcase, which is usually seen with international travelers, was placed horizontally across her feet. From the corner of my eye I could see light flashing on her snowy white face (these women always have good skin…and why not, their faces are always covered). My face turned toward her out of a reflex action common among Indians. I became amused when I saw her playing with her Blackberry/a high-profile GPRS phone—I still don’t know which phone it was. In techno matters I’m two generations behind, if not two world wars…She was chatting, I figured out. She seemed to be pretty comfortable with her gadget. I didn’t want to look curious or less-privileged, so I pretended to mind my own business and began staring at the LCD monitor installed on the wall in front of me. And then, only God knows why it happened: I sneezed! I sneezed so hard that it felt like a round of Kapaal Bhati pranayam. My diaphragm and lungs opened up and became the unobstructed channel of pranas. After the powerful sneeze, I said, “excuse me” in a soft voice, which no one hears from me during my regular conversations. Trust you me, I didn’t pretend. It’s one of my many reflex actions. After I said my phrase, I heard a word from that woman. “Excused!”, she said. That was it. I left the burka and GPRS oxymoron there and starting gadding again until my friend arrived.

Filed under: Life

The evening walk

Over the crown

orange clouds turn pink.

Under the sky

a heart begins to sing.

The emerald meadows

take flights of wonder.

In the crack between flights

a blissful life begins.

Filed under: Life