Being energetic

i have often been asked, what keeps me energised. whats the secret of my enthusiasm. i pondered long and deep. and it comes down to a beautiful word in urdu. 

हैरानियत (hairaniyat)

the state of being in wonderment. 

its multilayered, this word. 

at the very least being in wonderment fills me with appreciation and gratitude. i like the way it feels. so i keep searching for things that keep me in wonderment. and the more i look, the more i find.

then again, i know life is, and will always be, a pendulum swinging back and forth, between the good and the bad and the ugly. being in wonderment helps dealing with the bad and the ugly. it keeps me upbeat just long enough for the pendulum to eventually swing in a rosier direction. 

isnt that a bit delusional? 

am i overlooking, even belittling, things that may grow behind my back and eventually sock me in the face when i am least expecting?

interestingly the word in urdu for the bad and the ugly is हैवानियत (haiwaniyat). and i can see why one should be wary of this darkness. haiwaniyat sounds very powerful, very sinister, very persistent. and i can also see why it may seem delusional to look away from something so bad. 

so i pondered more, dug deeper. and the beauty of it all revealed itself. hairaniyat doesn't force you to look away, it helps find something good in the darkest of things. and once that good is found it begins to eat the darkness away, from inside. slowly, steadily. 

ofcourse, the darkness will sock me in the face, knock me down, drive me into rage and despair but i know it's losing and i know it cant keep me down forever. i know i eventually will be back on top. 

and that fills me with energy.

and that is my secret

Roma, The Immersive Opus

way back in the seventies the big daddies, satyajit ray, mrinal sen, ritwick ghatak et al, decided to be voyuers. and out flowed a flood of movies which the confounded critics termed as immersive experiences.

nothing much happened in these movies other than a camera following people around, sometimes in excruciating cringe worthy details. who can forget the eight minute long shot of a starving man eating and eventually choking on a bowl of rice, or two kids fascinated, minutes on end, by 'singing' telegraph wires.

interestingly these movies invariably end abruptly. almost as if even the director had enough and just sprang from his seat shouting 'its a wrap'  or maybe he just realised he was running out of budget

whenever i saw these movies i did three things, at some point i wondered where was all this headed, at some other point i would sneakily lookup the timeline to see how much is still left, and at the end, when it abruptly ended, i wud swear 'wtf' under the breath

however these movies had their moments and there were times when the details would jolt one into realising that one is not paying enough attention to the smaller more important things in life.

so will roma. it is as immersive as movies can get and it will take you on a ride in such minute details that you will wonder whether you bought a movie ticket or did you instead hop on a flight to mexico.

and i am equally sure that you will feel that sense of deja vu, the sense that though you are watching people out there in mexico, things aren't so different after all. that all of us live similar lives. do similar things. at one point in the movie a maid goes about wrapping up the house at night, and the camera follows her as she goes room to room switching off the lights, and then in the end when all the lights are off she walks over to a corner lamp and switches it on. i smiled. thats exactly what i do too.

it has its cringe worthy moments, for sure. i dare you not to flinch at two scenes, once in a bedroom and once in a hospital. and yes, i did wonder at one point where was this headed and yes, when it ended i did swear under my breath.

did i love it? well, lets just say i wasn't anywhere close to hating it.

Cafe Musings

i recently spent some time with a very wise lama, and he told me that if you want to build something beautiful then begin with the courage that in the process of making it you may break it / destroy it

overcome that fear, then maybe, just maybe, you may get lucky.

this overcoming fear thingie applies at various levels...but at the root of it lies the message that fear is not your friend...in everything

being careful and being fearful is not the same thing.... not by far...

 if you feel hesitation, then see if there is any fear lurking behind that hesitation... 

incidentally fear has an interesting way of claiming power you, it puts on the 'past experiences' hat and pretty much locks you down...

look it in the eye and say 'haan, toh???'