Tipping Point

There was an absolute calm as the translucent mist floated across the dark of night. Even the lazy wind seemed to have stopped rolling. The blanket of silence absorbed even the emotions- as if communication was never a facet of existence. The moon, size of a clipped off nail, added little ‘enlightenment’ as life seemed more like hiding desperately from some unknown seeker!
I always believed that there was some 'tipping point' to the nights. A point where the spent forces of the day gave way to fresh spirits for the new day sun. A point where life stood neutral, albeit vulnerable but the most beautiful; where life did not carry the wish-lists, where there were no dimensions of accomplishments… where existence was liberated!
I had woken till late to witness this ultimate moment of life. I have tried to smell the airs, tried to wear the mist and soak in the warmth… I have tried to live that tipping point!
Education, from the alphabets to the numbers, seemed a pointless voyage. The mutation of knowledge kills knowledge itself and at the end we all turn no wiser than we were initially. The lessons of life, lessons in life, could never be scripted so beautifully with all the geometrics and logics of head and heart. Education remained a merry-go-round in the fair of a lifetime.
But today, at this very moment, I feel different. I feel complete. I feel as if I have won the prize but not at a cost. The fulcrum balanced around my existence as realization is borne out of experience. The matrix of various tools of education, signs, symbols and expressions of law and order seem to melt away, leaving behind the dimensionless point of existence – of me, being me, the only truth.
I haven’t lost anything today. Haven’t lost a corporate deal, haven’t been beaten at the stocks, not been left alone in love nor been hurt in some ego stroking duel. There is no reason to mourn as there is no reason to celebrate. There is no over-worked emotion catalyzing chemical illusions in me. But I feel different, I do.
Man, woman and the child- permutated in so many relations in this world, so many emotions, duties, expectations and evaluations. Worth! To prove the value. To earn the value! In itself, no one has any value. Nothing seems precious. The decorations of tangibles and intangibles of life bring meaning to everything. And today, for me, meanings seemed to have changed. Seemed to have shed the ornaments.
What have I lived for? The matured question never seemed to have a simple answer. I have lived for moments. I have lived for expectations- mine and others. I have lived for the seasons, the moods of life and also… have lived to die another day. Death has been repetitive, whoever said you only live once. Been born again and again, with each death, with each failure, with another shot at success.
Others, I have lived for but all for selfish ends, masked, hidden in ways, like the magic of ecological balance on earth, cruel yet necessary! I have lived and died just like the high waves at sea. But today, tonight, seems like serendipity.
The sphere around me seems to have halted. The inter-atomic movements, the Brownian motions, Newton’s laws, gravity… all seem to have been jinxed by some corollary spirit. The Tipping point that I have always imagined – the neutral reality of life. The flash point of life’s universal truth. The plateau of life where the object and image superimpose; the principle of duality, the good and the bad, dark and the light… all seem to have been absorbed into the spirit, the liberation of life.
I am awake, not a figment of a dream. I can see the familiar objects of life in various shapes, in various capacities, standing and holding together the fair we all belong to; the substrate of our existence – I can see them all.
But I feel different. If only words had the power to express what I feel now, if only this moment could be given a chance to grow, into something bigger… The tipping point of life, my life, came in that one static moment of truth, that night, when I had everything, everything, but truly nothing at all.
Existence of a point is a mere presence- formless and I? A mere form trying to exist, without a point.

Ps: I do not really know if there really is a moment of balance in our lives, a moment where existence is not driven by external forces but I just felt… something truly. Suddenly, and thought if I could write it down… Tipping Point, the marker of life’s voyage.

duniya ka naara (aur...main tare zameen par)

The clock on the blue-white cubicle blinked back like a half-wit moron! Measuring out the minutes and hours of the day without being bothered about its prima focus… its quality, utility and emotions! It just counted through the sanity of my day! My corporate life where emails seemed like spy-games… secret conspiracies and assignments included filling in for privileged foreigners who would take quite sometime to settle down to the eastern civilizations and then work towards some constructive output.
And then every year boss would have the same old question…’When are you getting married?’ My utility has some matrimonial tendril that would one day choke me to death! Oh god, this corporate world where work/ time curve seems to disappear in the positive infinity and the ‘boss quotient’ seems to have the never ending negative gradient. They saw human intelligence is boundless… limitless and its fair to assume that our bosses are the enlightened souls with the halo around their heads.
My best friend is getting married in a fortnight but I have organizational commitments. Shifting to a new office, the gul mohar has been left behind… just this makes me sad at times when I stare out and long for the fiery orange dotting the green! My colleague has a three month old she misses, quite openly and there again I feel so sad for her… poor soul!
People around have nothing special to discuss about. They talk about the damn weather, the pollution, neighbor’s new car and worsening traffic of the metro! And today they were in the hungry hippo mode! All day, it was like a big buffet with everyone talking about dishes from all over the national kitchens!
I worked out of my blue-white space; trying to diffuse the emotions and rage inside… wondering what would really help. Wanted to run home for a nap, or maybe hog a Mc veggie and then the sinful chocolate at the Barista down-lane.
I wanted to fly home. Shut out the din of the human song and ring of the corporate jingle bells that made everyday seem like Christmas! I wanted to work and not feel it encompassing everything else. I wanted to get back the gul mohar tree again.
What is wrong with me? The corporate virus seems to have seeped into the hard drive of my life and now everything seems to be getting a corporate approval before execution! My loyalty, devotion, goodness (most importantly!) seem to be dipped in the blue-white of the organizational color.
I am so very important to the people and the troupe around! They are all so much busy and caught up in varied battles and situations of life… and I feel the rush of compassion wash me off with a guilt- oh how selfish have I been to just think of my own clot? How selfish of me to run and take time-off, attend my best-est chum’s shaadi! Give maa a surprise by the surprise visit I have never managed in the three years that I have ‘served’ the company! I am so ashamed to be so caught up with my own bag of bananas!!
I saw my sister balance her family and work and even she took a year off but then she was in the governmental agency, I am a private corporate citizen and like the LED of my desk clock, I need to run on…
I am a girl… a woman, a lady, I do not know if my age would influence you to use wither of the words but then, never ask for ‘her’ age, as they say! And till the time I tell my boss, at the annual appraisal that I am getting married… huh, life is going to be like this- little of my own, a lot of my ‘others’ and most of my ‘nothings’ – for all that I want is not in the blue and white of my space in the temperature controlled room, a little of what I want is just the ol’ tree from my window… a fiery orange – bold and beautiful!
And for the better part of what all I would want… well, I don’t know… in the constitution of my corporate citizenship, somewhere, I have so many roles to enact… I have forgotten when I am me.
I just get up a bit late nowadays, maybe all I need is just a little bit of rest topped with a sizzling brownie ‘n chocolate sauce.

something would be outta nothing

A thousand tears! A zillion reasons to wrench in pain, feel the virus of self-pity corrode the guts out of you. The big bad world against the self, like a serpent from the fairy tales coiling eternally, strangling out the spirits and hope.
Life is a pot boiler of strange portions that seem to easily stimulate the tear glands, the lachrymal glands, as they are biologically called!
Cynical, irritating, complaining, sad, dejected, loud, impatient, volatile, negative, heavy, aged, enlightened… somehow a lot of laurels can be heaped!
Life and times might not be like the J curve of economics, it might not have a positive gradient also but then heck! It’s the very moment that we seem to miss so easily in the craving for the future and the scare of the past. What we have is here and now…

With a wad of bus-tickets, conductor I would
The bath-tub on sofa, bus-driver with a hoot!

Ten paisa and twenty would contribute to buy
Rubber balls for cricket, paper kites to fly

The pet birds… verandah, my little aquarium-
Rhythm less on tabla, the polished harmonium

Illustrated classics, Oliver and Finn
Art classes on Saturday, then Charlie Chaplin

Stories of yore, the dreamy eyed boy
Chocolates and toffees, those ultimate joy

Scooter ride with dad, riding ‘long fast
The road-side sugarcane, in the summers be must!

Friends all so many… man! scream and shout
Roller-coaster of life… just all round-about!

2007 gave a lot erased a lot. The ledgers of life don’t seem worth a hair-splitting analysis. In the principle of duality, the joy gives birth to pain… the light gives birth to shadow- might be vice versa but should that matter? The hen or the egg dilemma? The existence matters and so I guess 008 would be the new bond!
The effort to live for the present; the effort to etch a smile and not shade the grumpy sketch of a burdened face. The effort to modulate, the effort to focus. The effort to honor and appreciate what all is there.
A little bit of honesty and a little less of hunger… maybe there is madness, a joy in the surroundings that are shy to reveal themselves in front of the lofty dreams and missions we have. Let’s play that hide ‘n seek for a change! Lets try to forgive and forget and not be in the prisoner’s dilemma of a game theory situation! Let words, music, actions and motions fortify the basement of life’s pyramid.
There is nothing to evaluate against, nothing to compare and lose… there is just the moment, the flash… and a desire to click a brilliant picture on the reels of time.
Stars do fall unnoticed-
Tare Zameen par-
A patient search found
Tare Zameen par-
A bundle of joy, this realization
Tare Zameen par-
The countless dimensions radiate
Tare Zameen par-
The innocent happiness generate-
Wohi… Tare Zameen par-

Kho naa jaye yeh… Tare Zameen par…