The Eternal Pursuit

“When I discover who I am, I'll be free.” -Ralph Ellison

  Tears started to roll down my cheeks. I summoned up the introspective train of thoughts from the depths of my subconscious mind. It steadily left a beguiling effect on me and simultaneously, humbled me. Just for the information, I am currently residing around the vicinity of the ‘The All England Lawn Tennis Club (Championships) Limited’ located at Church Road. To cite more uncomplicated cue, I am staying around about the same region which was unanimously conquered and ruled by Swiss Tennis ace Roger Federer for five years in succession, only to lose his reign to a determined and vigorous Spaniard Rafael Nadal who astoundingly dethroned him. Then followed a juggle of supremacy for the next few years, until a Serbian, Novak Djokovic, with his unassailable backhand and service returns, took over the ‘grass court kingdom’ in July 2011. Got that? OK, let me put in a blunt manner – I am staying in Wimbledon in London!

  As cliched as it may sound, but never had I imagined that I would get to breathe in the same place, that I, more than once, used to watch about sitting intrigued before a television, 4500+ miles away! If that wasn’t enough, every day as I board one of the Southwest Trains to London Waterloo station, I come across Vauxhall station wherein you can get the resonance of the famous Oval cricket ground that is just half a mile away! Indeed, having come so far, I bear an earnest desire to watch the Wimbledon’s final at the center court in July 2012 and a cricket match at the Oval.

  My gaze caught a couple passionately embracing and kissing in the bustling evening time at Baker Street. They were unmindful of the public around and unequivocally, the public was reciprocating in an equally unmindful manner! Without any efforts, the sarcastic words, that I encountered long ago, popped in my head – “Here kissing in public is allowed, but pissing is not; In India, pissing in public is allowed, but kissing is not.” If I have to scout for a commonality between the two, people in India are undeniably unmindful of the public pissing as much as the people here are explicitly unmindful of the public kissing!

  Many people have come in my life. Some have stayed. Some left hastily. And those who’d stayed left rather abruptly! There was a period when I’d wasted my precious time, precariously touching the threshold of worrying and trying to find out the reason behind. But then once, fatefully as I crossed the threshold, did I realize that divine awakening was waiting to dawn on me on the other side of the fence! I realized that things happen for a greater purposes and reasons beyond the timid and diminutive nature of human grasp. It will always be the case – many will come into your life; many will go away from your life after some time; then next set of people enter your life and stay, till the time comes for them to depart. And amidst these musical chairs, some will understand many; many will mistake some! There will always exist, the quagmire of right and wrong, providentially dispelled by the judicious and eternal time as per one’s augmenting learning and fate.

  The purpose behind such a heavy discourse is to highlight the distinctive fact of the conglomerate structure of the cohort in the course I am pursuing. It is truly diverse in the sense one could imagine. Students represent varied nations across the globe – Germany, Russia, Albania, Croatia, Philippines, Ukraine, Madagascar, US, UK, Pakistan and its politically friendly neighbor (pun intended) – India! There was quite a dispute, when I was in India, on whether to pursue a course abroad or not, but as further understood here and stated in my earlier blog, the very experience of interacting with all of them and learning, discovering and rediscovering yourself thereby, is simply irrefutable. There are at times difficulties in communications, predictably, due to the extreme variety of culture people have inhabited in and have come from and respective diverse experiences they’ve accrued in their past. But nevertheless, communications do occur successfully, by one’s unrelenting efforts or indomitable will to break the self-made glass shell of ego and ignorance. And it is in this process, rediscovery of oneself occurs!

  As per the words of Ralph Ellison, it is in that eternal discovery pursuit to attain endless freedom, I must unwaveringly toil – “If not me, then who; if not now, then when.”

  …and with those stimulating words etched in my mind with no dispute, my train of thoughts reached the platform of sublime peace and tranquility. I finished cutting the onions and moved on to cut the tomatoes; and hence, inadvertently, tears stopped to roll down my cheeks…

A Bird Out Of the Nest

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” – Clifton Fadiman

   Andrew clasped his fingers of his right hand, firmly, between the comforting and reassuring fingers of the left hand of his female acquaintance on two occasions – while take off and then during touchdown. Andrew was the person sitting adjacent to me on the flight to London. I got a taste of the shrunken globe when Andrew exclaimed vociferously after he’d got a chance to peep onto my filled-in Landing Card. The instigating factor, out of all that I could speculate, was my mentioned birthplace that caught his chirping eyes – TRICHY, a small township in Tamil Nadu, in Southern India! There I was who was born in Trichy, flying to UK, sitting alongside a native bloke from UK, who’d just visited Trichy, out of all significant tourist places in India, and returning to UK. At that moment, I couldn’t gauge the odds of such occurrences transpiring but simply marveled at one of the many bedazzling coincidences in play.

   On the day I’d arrived, London welcomed me with the most pleasant weather I’d ever anticipated. I got to travel in the much talked about London underground tube that very day to reach my place from Heathrow airport. Traveling in the tube evoked reminiscences of my travel in the New Delhi Metro Rails. If the tube plies beneath the surface of the earth in London, the Metro Rails ply overhead on an elevated bridge in New Delhi. Barring this contrary, I suppose, from the design of the tube map to the entire modus operandi of local rail transport, India has taken more than just cues from the London underground rail system to implement its currently operating Metro Rail in its capital. Nevertheless, it’d be unfair to say that India has only managed to replicate everything from nuts-to-bolts; I’d say, fairly, India has bettered the design and modus operandi wherever it could!

   It’s simply an indescribable feeling to behold a sight of bouquet of animated students from various nooks of the world, gathered for the International Students Welcome Programme (ISWP) organized in the university. London – a beguiling stage – plays a perfect host to many of the aspiring students and stands true to the words of being one of the finest cosmopolitans in the world, by cohesively uniting students from different cultures and society and making them congregate under one wise and unanimous roof of education. It’s quite noteworthy to learn that almost 25% of the Brits currently residing are native inhabitants of other countries; and heartily, London continues to welcome and embrace overseas and unfamiliar citizens, with open arms!

   “The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” – These prudent words of Saint Augustine bore its true meaning in my mind when I exchanged thoughts with various students from diverse ethnicity, on a boat trip organized on the river Thames as part of ISWP. As the light faded following the sunset, so did the cultural barriers. Although very few could pronounce each others' names, the splendid distant view of the circular London eye, the sparkling reflection of illuminated Westminster Abbey on the waters, the passing of the coveted London Bridge overhead as we sailed below, and the evidently striking cold winds, all conspired universally paving a path to find like-minded people and bond with them. We aptly decided to shun the name game. After all, what’s in a name! The indulgence in wholehearted interactions, further on, categorically helped to dispel and dissolve the accrued and preconceived notions, into the sea of truth and enlightenment. Eventually, and more pertinently, I believe, each stood conspicuously corrected with the judicious words of Aldous Huxley ringing in the back of their mind – “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.”

   A recent survey declared that Britons say sorry up to eight times a day on an average. Sorry and Thank you are used by the Britons for almost anything and everything! From the part of the world I come from, it takes a lot of gaffe on an individual’s part, for him to elicit the highly expended word of the Britons. Invariably many things are implied back in my society and country. But I am aware I am dwelling in London at present and have to inculcate the customs followed here, to thrive and be accepted as one in here. That is an indispensable truth all ardent travelers bear in mind. I, having designated myself as an ardent traveler, have perpetually etched the words of James Michener in my mind – “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” So, expect me to soon hit, if not surpass, the Britons’ average of uttering sorry!

   …I’ll be off on a one day journey to Brighton tomorrow. As a bird out of its nest, I intend to explore and keep my inquisitiveness craving for more, all along rediscovering myself and weaving a fine garland of friends in the journey. After all, as Tim Cahill impeccably stated – “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.”…

The Make Up

“… faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase.” —Martin Luther King Jr.

 There were persuasions for quite some time that I should be blogging. I like to write. No doubt. But I love to talk! However, later than sooner, much to people’s ill-fate, I realized their persuasion to blog was a conspired modest approach to escape listening to me altogether. In fact I was hauled up many times for talking to great extents, unmindful whether the person has, at the most, set the direction of his ear towards me, leave alone listening. But then, talking has always been my passion, not conversing! As I encountered a recession in the audience who would cater their coveted gossip-yearning ears to my incessant talking, I’d no choice but resort to writing.

 I did no better in my new endeavor, initially, and the abomination continued crushing my hope and faith – this time for my text being too long! But then I thrust few selected write-ups onto my close acquaintances, who dared not to refuse on my face. Out of those, few managed to complete and more importantly survived reading my text; and to my surprise and liking even relayed positive feedback. In addition, they encouraged staunchly that I write more than often.  I was touched. My faith got redeemed! Nevertheless, albeit earning scarce yet loyal readers, I couldn’t write that often as my life didn’t witness that regularly, stirring, inspiring, and enriching new experiences – ingredients that I considered (still consider) essential to propel me to pen my thoughts in words.

 Unlike then, my life has now entered a momentous change, an enthralling realm (thanks to my parents). I want to believe that my new phase of life will spring experiences prefixed with the adjectives mentioned above, thereby goading me to pen regularly. Although this time I will consciously make efforts to keep the length of the text to one page of a word document, I confess, religiously, that I may encroach upon the space of the header and footer section, at times out of old habit!

 THHHHUUUUUUDDDDDDDDDD…..that was the sound produced as my bag hit the ground once I dropped it on the surface of the earth outside the airport. On this day, as entire India bid farewell to the beloved guest Lord Ganesha, I quietly took off on a plane from IGI airport, New Delhi – 9/11 a significant date to bear in mind – only to make a smooth and monotonous touchdown at the runway of the airport, much unlike the dreaded intentions of the two planes, eleven years ago. After a comfortable nine hours of mid-air soaring, I was finally able to set my feet on the capital land of the Englishmen – London!  Least used organ inside my cranium – brain – was overwhelmed and secreted abundant hormones generating sporadic signals, out of sheer excitement. I reckoned in anticipation – a new beginning beckons my life obsessed with nomadic desires. Some come here to play the gentlemen’s game, some come here inspired to meet Lady Gaga, some come to find their future while some to lose their past, some come to wax, and some to be the wax! But I have come here, because I had to. Destino! Besides, in the least, salubriously, I suppose the excess sebum secreted by my sebaceous glands would be well dealt off by the marginally humid and cold weather conditions here, keeping the irritation level at bay.

 I had only high regards for all dictum on faith, until recently. Now, I possess a stabbed belief system doctored by a thought-provoking maxim that I recently encountered, by Friedrich Nietzsche on faith: not wanting to know what the truth is! After all, blatantly when the entire annual appraisal process, though farce, is made up and legitimately shoved upon the employers, blatantly when hundreds of thousands of tax payer’s money is coughed up by the corrupt politicians and officially made up to seem for the welfare of the society; I leave for you to solemnly speculate and decide as to blatantly why can’t I make up all of the above and walk away freely……

…and now, in the hindsight, when I re-examine the above words of Martin Luther King Jr. in conjunction with the recently encountered maxim on faith, I fervently wonder what would happen to the person who takes the first step, and thereafter, factually there is no staircase at all…