I was at this hospital a couple of days ago, Jehangir Hospital to be precise – click here to go to their website … didn’t work did it? I haven’t hyperlinked it to anything .

So, I was at this hospital, waiting my turn to get into some test or the other, and I couldn’t help thinking: a hospital is like an airport. You just wait for a different reason. Apprehension, boredom, pain, fear, joy … you can find all of these emotions in the faces of people at both places – the reasons might differ. Basically it’s the same shit, different station.

I just came back from a medical check-up a while ago. No, I didn’t just get up this morning wanting to get one. I just had to – my shoulders refuse to lift my arms to the keyboard. The good news is: I’ll live. The bad news is: it might be not be such good news if I continue to work and live the way I do.

For starters, I have to reduce time on the computer, which is pretty difficult considering most of my work happens through the comp.

Then, I have to reduce time on the computer since my eyes are apparently forgetting how to shift focus …

And finally, I have to reduce time on the computer and go do some physical activities so that my back and neck muscles get some respite.

Now this is not just my problem, the doctors tell me. This is normal medical abnormality in this day and age. In fact, one of the docs assured me, most of the younger lot (below 30) will feel a lot worse when they reach my age – hah! Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better.

The things is, the physical stress levels are far greater today than they were a decade ago and the irony is that this physical stress is a result of lack of regular physical activity.

Isn’t that cool? We don’t run, walk, wrestle, jump, etc, any more, and as a result we might end up needing training to remind our muscles how to walk, stretch, etc before too long.

Now I am wondering if I should get so excited about Facebook – it’s already added an hour to my time on the computer after work every day…

Corporate ladder; artist’s path … I’m one of those fortunate souls who walks this tight-rope every day of my life. And it’s a very trying journey.

I spent most of the previous decade (and a bit of this one) in the media. I’m still in the media but as of the last half decade my primary muse has been the corporate bottomline.

Frankly, I like the work, but I hate the politics. The money is better than okay but recently a friend got me thinking when he asked: is it worth giving up the artist in you?

This is another of those questions that I want to ponder about and get back to you.

But one thing I can tell you: Corporate life sucks the art out of you slowly but surely. Life in many companies is designed to numb your senses to the point where sleep is the only fine art, and partying harder than you work is the only elixir. Preoccupations other than work are frowned upon in a most sophisticated manner.

I now understand why many European and North American companies talk so often and so loudly about ‘work-life balance’…

Guess what? I’m now officially a little cooler than I was a few days back. I’m on Facebook! Thanks to Anonyma, I’m hooked to this social networking site and I’m networking and networking and … you can expect a whole of daily ramble on networking henceforth.

“It is only in our decisions that we are important.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), French Philosopher 

 Hey buddy, how are you? As you can see, I have finally gotten around to writing you a letter. And I must thank you for the four hundred and sixty one letters that you have written to me in the last six years. It’s been a long time since we last met, and if it wasn’t for your letters I wouldn’t have known that you now have a son, a daughter and wonder of wonders, a wife too! And from the photographs you sent me in the last letter, I notice that you need more investment in hair.
By the way, did you know that I had to go to the post office to pick up the parcel you sent me? And that there was nothing in it? You idiot! If you wanted me to write you a letter, all you had to do was ask. And could you please open an email account now that I have finally written to you? I can’t seem to hold the pen for too long these days… my fingers are out of practice. 
I will write again in a couple of years once I have recuperated from the acute cramps in my right hand because of writing this 271 word letter. I may never write again and it will all be your fault. If you have any home remedies for writer’s cramps please write to me… and don’t expect a reply! Next time I am going to call you up.
My regards to your wife and children.
PS: Why don’t you move to Pune? That way we won’t have to write letters.
This is more or the less the letter that I wrote recently to an old friend, Chintamani. He is a man of words and his letters are cherished by all who know him.
 
Now Chintamani has refused to let the ravages of email destroy his language. In fact, he has valiantly fought off pressure from all quarters to join the world wide web citizenry. He insists that the email is a mockery of language. And so, for the last six years he has been writing letters to all his friends, painstakingly keeping them updated on his life with his beautiful penmanship. That is how I know about the broken leg on his third dining table chair – his son sawed it off so he could test if superglue is really strong enough to fix anything. Chintoo (his son) had seen something similar on television and wanted to be sure. As you can imagine, Chintoo was disappointed and he wrote me a two-paragraph letter expressing his outrage.
Now I am an idiot myself. I have never bothered to reply to any of Chintamani’s letters nor that of Chintoo’s; or anyone’s letters for that matter. Of course, I have called everybody on and off, or have been emailing them thrice a day. But it isn’t the same.
I have all the letters that anybody has ever written to me. All the cards, postcards, drawings, poems, photographs… it’s all there in several cardboard files. And once in a while, I sit down on a rainy day or a winter night and go through the letters. And laugh. Or choke. Or smile.
I can’t do all that with an email – and I am a hard-core fan of email, mind you.
I am glad I have Chintamani for a friend. It is because of him that I recently realised that if I were to give an exam today, I would fail. Simply because I wouldn’t be able to write more than 15 minutes… my hand would ache till I was blue in the face, and miserable. And my doctor would not be too thrilled if I were blue in the face, I can tell you that.
I think I shall visit the post office one of these days. And meet the man who brings me my letters and parcels. I think I shall also write a letter a month to each of my friends. I think a letter is the simplest way to tell them I care; that I have the time to write to them. Call it snail mail, but I think a letter is a letter is a letter.

I am a technological moron. And one of the best ones at that. I can’t handle any gizzmos, I resist all new technology, and I am wayyyyy behind in the cellphone stakes. I notice the ‘latest’ model just when the manufacturer stops making them – which means I am usually 18 models behind everybody else.

But that was till January 2007, when I decided to turn over a new leaf. I figured it was important to be with it. And so, I did not refuse when the office gave me a Blackberry in the last week of February – it was essential for my line of work (I am a traveling salesman with a fancy title).

By March, I was responding to all my clients almost as soon as they wrote-in and boy was I excited. My ears were tuned to the buzz of the Blackberry when an email arrived in my inbox. My eyes were fixed on the handset 24/7. My internal team was thrilled with my response time. And Anonyma was looking for extra long rope to string me up from the nearest telecom tower. 

By April, I was haunted by my phone and by the time May came around, I was eating and breathing work and emails almost every other minute of the day …

Finally, one fine August day found me telling the man in the mirror: “It’s okay not to keep up with the world every minute of the day.” I gave up the Blackberry the next day.

Nowadays, I spend my time after work watching our nine-month-old son trying to learn how to stand and how to fall without hurting his coconut…

A couple of years ago Anonyma and I paid three hundred and fifty bucks and got ourselves an education. It wasn’t what we paid for, nor were we expecting any learning, but the education just stood up and made itself known. And it wasn’t just any knowledge to be remembered or a skill to be practiced ten thousand times before it became part of our intuition. Nope, it was wisdom, the kind that gives you a handle on life and living.
It was a pleasant day and my wife and I were at the Ellora caves, some 30-odd kilometres from Aurangabad. The famous Kailash Temple beckoned us and we wandered around the cave temple looking at the sculptures and intricate carvings, imagining the era in which this temple was carved out of the mountain. We recognized many of the sculpted forms as gods of the Hindu pantheon. We did not figure out the stories that the various murals and sculptures were depicting. But that added to the feeling of being on an archaeological expedition.
Then we heard a voice.
“Look at this.” We turned around to find an old gentleman pointing towards a wall behind us. The group of people with him looked at the wall.
“This is King Ravana trying to shake Mount Kailash. You can see Lord Shiva and Parvati sitting on the peak, while the other gods look on in apprehension.”
Our curiosity piqued, we went over to look at the sculpture where all this was happening. Sure enough there was the story in front of us.
“Lord Shiva touched the ground with his big toe and Ravana was crushed under the mountain.”
“Now look there.” We also turned in the direction he pointed.
“This is the story of the Ramayana…” the voice trailed off as the group moved away.
My wife and I looked at each other and then looked at the sculptures around us and suddenly we felt we should hire a guide to tell us what those artists from long time ago were trying to communicate to us.
So we went out of the Kailash Temple and found a guide.
“I will take Rupees three hundred and fifty and I will show you the important caves in the next one-and-a-half hours.”
We happily nodded and went back to the entrance of the Kailash temple.
“This is Cave number 16, the most famous of the caves at Ellora,” our guide told us in a drawl in English.
“Look at this…”
“Now look at that…”
“Now look here…”
Within 15 minutes we were out of the Kailash temple, having seen and heard about the nine-and-a-half sculptures which our guide told us were important.
We then followed him to caves 1 to 12. Outside those caves, he stood in his princely manner and gave us a half-hour lecture on history and archaeology.
“Cave 10 is the most important. Caves 1 to 5 are not important. Cave 11 and 12 are not so important – they are the hostels where the Buddhist monks lived. You can spend five minutes looking at the important caves.”
By this time, we were a little irked, but we went eagerly to Cave 10. A giant statue of the Buddha sat enthroned in a temple that was built in the shape of an arched hallway. The serene countenance of the Buddha radiated a sense of wholeness, filling us with a sense of anticipation that we were about to understand how everything in the world was connected. A peaceful silence reached out and filled our hearts.
 “I humbly request you to see all the caves fast so that we can go to caves 30-34,” the guide’s dry voice broke the trance. And that was that. Our encounter with serenity had lasted a full five minutes.
We walked through caves 1-5 in a foul mood. We belligerently decided to spend time at Caves 11 and 12, but the guide had put a label in our heads: these were hostels. I felt robbed of my vision. I felt robbed of the ability to imagine what life must have been for the monks who stayed here, what the world must have been like then.
By the time we reached the car, we were angry. We reached the Jain caves (numbers 30-34) and got a five-minute lecture. Then we followed our guide’s hurried footsteps up to the ‘first floor’ of the ‘most important’ cave. There we got a five-minute lecture that gave us information available on various websites and in books. Some divine deities were identified. We were told that the Mahaveera is depicted with three ‘umbrellas’ over his head. And then we were told: “You can spend five minutes here and enjoy the caves.”
At the end of our guided tour, we realized that we hadn’t seen the Hindu caves (caves thirteen through twenty-nine) except for cave 16. Why? Well, because: “In those caves the sculptures from cave 16 are repeated.”
We paid him his due.
The next day we went to the Ajanta caves armed only with our imagination… and we discovered a lost world, a lost way of living. We found moments of tranquillity, moments of realization, moments of awe… and we found a connection to a lost world. And we remember the caves as individual entities – not as numbers.
I am quite sure that I will never take a guide again. I am quite sure because I realized that guides tell you what you should look at and how you should look at things. A true guide or teacher, in my opinion, is one who is there for guidance and not instruction. We learn on our own. We simply need to be reminded now and then that we have to see through our own eyes and imagine through our own imagination and construct our own understanding of what we behold.
I think I will go back to Ellora again. I still have to discover that world for myself.

   “By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”

 — Socrates, Greek Philosopher (469 BC – 399 BC) 

Shattered, jagged edges of glass
Strewn across a blank canvas
Every place the edges touch
A streak of blood trickles down
Painting a new broken dream

A mountain here, a valley there
This living brush etches deep
On every bit of white space
A new canvas springs up
To be smothered by a scream

When this art is almost ready
A happy thought bravely cowers
Naked on this bloody land
Very lonely white in a sea of red
A fresh theme for a broken dream