The Fledgling and the Risk

A fledgling standing at the edge of the nest, peering out at its first flight. I don't know much about bird psychology, but I can't help but wonder what goes through its mind.....Fear of falling? Fear of failure? Fear of death?... After all, in leaving the nest and trusting itself to untested wings, it is taking a risk....a risk which carries with it the chance to fall to a painful death, but also, the chance to spread its wings, and truly become a bird!!

The world today is watching a crisis unfold at the international level....a crisis which resulted from taking risks. The chances of failure were high, but the returns of success could be a dream come through!...And the economies of the world today know the effects of that risk.

So then, what does one do? Take a risk? Or play it safe.

Perhaps the answer to this lies more in considering the latter option. What would be the consequences of playing it safe in a particular situation? It could be that nothing at all happens, and status quo remains undisturbed, in which case, if progress or evolution of some sort was not your aim, it would be ideal to leave the risks on the street and close your door to taking chances.

However, if playing it safe could result in losing what you value most...well, then I'd say the answer is obvious.

The fledgling could stay snug. Stay safe. Stay alive...Never fly. And ultimately die. And so, though it may not appear so to the little bird, probably the best thing that could happen to it, is for circumstances (in the form of the ever patient mother bird) to push the fledgling out of its comfort zone, and nudge it over the wall of the nest.

Ramblings with a poetry book

I salvaged a book from the room of a certain graduating senior for whom I feel the greatest affection (yes, there is a chink even in my armour!), and felt a bit as if I was opening the door to Narnia. Many a minute have I invested in this book of poetry, and I know there are many more in store. These are snippets of two poems which I read, the night before Dee Pee Cee exam (I loved him , his rose-apple cheeks and his "harsh words" to death, but I pray that in all my life I never have to do another of those courses again! Dee Pee Cee Pee Cee Pee Cee indeed!!!). Completely different from each other, one is a light hearted one, which so perfectly describes the behaviour of my bedclothes at night, and the other....well, reflect upon it and see what you get from it.

So here goes:

NIGHTMARE
By Sir W.S. Gilbert

When you're lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo'd by anxiety,
I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety;
For your brain is on fire - the bedclothes conspire of usual slumber to plunder you:
First your counterpane goes, and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from under you;
Then the blanketing tickles - you feel like mixed pickles - so terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick 'em all up in a tangle;
Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle!
Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eye-balls and head ever aching,
But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you'd very much better be waking;

And so it goes on in a simmilar vein. I loved it because of the tongue-in-cheek humour, and because the words are so rhythmic and easy on the tongue.

In this next one, in the first verse, notice the calm of the settings, and then take in the cynicism,realization, and turmoil epressed in the last verse, in the background of the first verse.

DOVER BEACH
By Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; - on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""'
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.


Sourced from A Pocket Book of Modern Verse, edited by Oscar Williams, published by Washington Square Press, Inc., New York. s

Job Search

Another poem which made it somewhere. Once again, it is non-secular in nature.


JOB SEARCH


Numbers of jobs were limited,

And candidates well qualified,

No godfather known anywhere,

No job contacts identified.



I must admit that I worried,

Watched peers get jobs from ‘papa’s friend’,

As I filled yet another form,

My despair, none can comprehend!



But that night I was reminded,

As I read the verse for that day,

The best job contact of them all,

Was mine! And just a prayer away!



This story has still not ended,

My career’s not quite begun,

But now it’s a wondrous mystery,

Surprises, after all, are fun.



And so, my job search has taught me,

To rest in His plan and His will;

The greatest Job-Finder chooses,

As he whispers, “Trust and be still”.

The Creation of an Alter Ego

I needed a new avatar! I required another personality...At least for the sake of a name at the bottom of my poem. The problem being that it was about work and a job, of which I had only had the limited experience of an internship....I was afraid that anyone who read it and who knew me would not take the poem seriously! And so, the search for my alter ego began.

Settling on the first name for my doppelganger wasn't too hard a task....it had to be, and could ONLY be "Claire". It was French, it was light, it was one syllable long, it wasn't unbelievable, and most importantly, I was in love with it!

The second name left me with a bit of a problem though......I tried going all Irish and taking on the name Connolly.....but Claire Connolly....?....hmmm...A bit too stylish...and maybe a tad bit corny too!

Claire Daniels....? Sounded a bit too much like some author I had already read....a bit too familiar!

Claire Paul? Claire Leonard? Claire James? Claire Kumar? Claire Clandestine? Claire, Claire, Claire, Claire!!!!
For days I drove friends mad! Vote on this set of names. Rank these in your order of preference. Compare this to that. Choose. Choose. Choose.

And as with any survey, I got very contradictory results, and in some cases, a funny look and an exclamation, "You've GOT to be joking!"

And then, for some inexplicable reason, when I was lying in bed one night, about to drop off to sleep, I remembered a baby I knew in church when I was a kid....his name was natty ('a' pronounced as in aligator, and 'ty' as 'tea')...he refused to eat his fruits, and just to show him that all good children ate their fruit, his mother had called me and fed me custard apple...and then I knew I had it!! Nati...short for Nathaniel! Perfecto!

Claire Nathaniel!

You problem wonder why I got so excited about this...or even bothered mentioning that inane and pointless story of the fruit. :-)

I wouldn't blame you. I don't know either. But I suppose that's what parents feel when naming their children....they name them for the weirdest reasons, after the strangest people....or the most ordinary commonplace ones....But they just know that THIS is the name for THIS baby. And similarly, Claire Nathaniel, and no other name, could be me.

Nathaniel is a Hebrew name. It means "God has given". As a bit of trivia, it was the other name of Bartholomew, one of the 12 apostles. Claire is French, and means "light" or "bright" or "shining" or "clear". It also means "famous".
Given the importance which I give to the meaning of names, I now think it symbolic and hopeful, even though I didn't realize it at the time of adopting this name, that Claire Nathaniel means "God has given light".


And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the rather off-beat tale of the manner in which Claire Nathaniel, my alter ego, the name at the end of some of my poems, was born.

Tagged!

I got tagged by Prithvi. It has been ages since I actually played along with one of these...and never on this blog. Still, I do find it fun! Here goes....

Five things you wish you could say to people (no names to be taken):
1) Grow up.
2) NOBODY is playing mind games with you!
3) Life isn't all about winning.
4) Let's be friends.
5) I can see through your veneer!

Eight things about me:
1) I rarely eat my vegetables.
2) I sing in the shower.
3) I think that being fat is a way of life.
4) I don't know why people can't just compete with themselves and no one else.
5) I don't understand the concept of "romantic love".
6) I need my space from people but I also need people.
7) I love travelling....desperately!
8) I should have been named Claire.

One way to win my heart (there’s just one):
Through music.

Five things that cross my mind a lot:
1)My immediate family.
2)Prayers (generally the requesting kind, I'm ashamed to say)
3)My friends and their lives.
4)Immediate worries.
5)The future.

One thing I wish I never did:
Be sweet. It gets boring.


Three Turn Offs:
1)Faff.
2)Lies.
3)Non-communicativeness.

Four things I want to do before I die:
1)Travel to all the continents.
2)Experience the birth of a baby (either as a spectator or being involved.)
3)Learn to speak another language fluently.
4)Publish a book.

One Confession:
I think I'm capable of great coldness and selfishness.

Alright! So now I get to tag others....hmmm.... I tag

1) Tuhina
2) Rudra
3) Thomas
4) Vikram
5) Dilip
6) Asma
7) Vipul
8) Divya

(Will add links to their blogs later)

It's Complicated

If there is one thing I really love about facebook, it is the greater understanding of human relationships shown here, as compared to many other networking sites. A very good example of this is that the options for one's relationship status are not limited to the usual "single", "married", "in a relationship" etc.....there is the additional much inclusive term "it's complicated"....which, from what I understand, sums up the myriad of emotions and equations and situations which two individuals may find themselves in.

Based quite unscientifically on vicarious experiences, general knowledge and evening gossip sessions, I have noticed a few trends...I don't know if this has always been a trend, whether it is limited to my age-group, or whether it is a newer phenomenon.....but more and more people are marrying later in life, more young individuals are increasingly opting for a situation of "let's-just-like-each-other-and-not-go-out-but-enjoy-the-normal-benefits(?)-of-a-relationship-while-being-available-for-dating-other-people" (Whew! What a mouthful!), (also known as an "open relationship", or, for the extremely relationship phobic individual...an "open equation",), people are increasingly not willing to endure commitment in any form (dating, marriage, relationships etc), AND, ironically enough, the divorce rate is steadily rising!

I find the last bit ironical because even though people don't seem to view marriage as a lasting commitment, they are STILL afraid of getting anywhere further than a few dates, and maybe a bit of movement in the backseat of a car!

To move in a tangential path for a moment (or perhaps for the rest of this post), what IS commitment? Based on a completely different discussion on a completely unrelated topic at my church youth group, I've come to understand that commitment is about taking a leap....a decision to move from some position to another, involving a mental decision to devote oneself in as many ways as one can to a chosen task/way of living/ person, etc. So then, could it be that my generation prefers status quo...staying unattached...leaving zilch scope for leaps or jumps of any sort?...

....Come to think of it, given the high split/divorce rate, reflecting the many leaps being taken back to the unattached status.. perhaps it isn't even about status quo....perhaps it has something to do with "two becoming one" versus "independence"....and a tendency to slide from the former to the latter...perhaps in the same manner as water flows from a higher level to a lower one.

Then again, despite the whole "I am a rock" mantra, it seems as though most single people I meet are "looking for someone"....for what purpose they do this is generally left undefined...but what seems clear is that independence, in the pure and whole sense of the world isn't really what my generation craves?

So then what is it? What is it that drives people to look for partners and simultaneously be commitment-phobic? Are all these trends really trends...or merely broad and unscientific generalizations?? Does love have anything to do with any of these??? And what exactly IS an "open-equation"?????....

...As some wise man said (I'm sure somebody HAD to have said this....if not, just quote me... ;-D )....."IT'S COMPLICATED!!"

Fulcrums

"Cedar waxwings dart among the swallows
Iridescent fish with wings,
Layers of life above the water.
Under, the trout."

- Judith Beach Nichols (1919-1979)

Author Sue Miller uses this verse of poetry written by her mother, before the opening chapter of her book "While I was Gone". I wouldn't go into reviewing the book, but in short, these lines capture the feelings of the protagonist as she lies in the bow of the boat, suspended between the water below and the sky above, in an idyllic moment with her husband on the lake, before the beginning of a chain of events which will threaten the entire life she has built up around her.

And this is how life is. Moments, sandwiched between more moments, such that we may scarcely pause to identify them...moments which act as the fulcrum for the turning into place of an entirely new chapter in our lives. Sometimes, they are more obvious....such as the moving of a train away from the station, carrying us to a new city and a new life, or the start of a new job, or the exchange of rings....but then, there are other moments....standing at the window on a white-light afternoon and watching the raindrops dent the mud, waiting in a windy crowded bus stop for the evening bus home to arrive, lying in bed at the drowsy-aware threshold of sleep...moments when, as Sue Miller puts it, we are "abruptly and most intensely, sharply aware of all the aspects of life surrounding [us], and yet of feeling neither part of it nor truly separated from it. Somehow impartial, unattached - an observer. Yet sentient of it all. Deeply sentient, in fact. But to no apparent purpose". And yet, often, these are the very moments which in some sub-conscious way, teach us the most about ourselves and help us find some purpose...some direction in the long journey of life.

We wish you...

I don't remember having used a blog to wish a person....but then, birthdays are special occasions, and when it is a birthday of one of my dearest friends...I suppose I can make an exception...

...NWD, I know that today is a reminder that you are older and greyer, but then, a lot wiser too, with a year more of experiences, knowledge, equations and friends....and that's something!

So Happy Birthday! God bless you, always and always!

Ever the best of friends!

:-)

Hair today...

With few exceptions, the women in nearly all hair product advertisements have long, shiny, straight, silky, black hair….hair which doesn’t get tangled in the rain, hair which glides through fingers (never mind whose), hair which allows combs to slide through it, without the slightest tangle or loss of strands……And so, the message is driven home again and again – for a special occasion, get your hair straightened…..silky straight hair is beautiful hair….and if you don’t have it, don’t bother flaunting anything!

Now, I don’t have a problem with straight, silky hair. I think on the right people, it looks beautiful! In fact, when I was younger and foolish, on two near-fatal occasions, I vainly attempted to get such straight silky hair for myself. But then, as I grew older, I also grew a wee bit wiser.

Straight hair is great for some people. Some are born with poker straight hair…good for them! But not all of us have it….and well, I never did. What I DID have, though, was a mane of unruly curls….curls that misbehaved, curls that knotted and frizzed out in the rain, curls which I can never dream of getting my fingers through, curls that take an hour of hard labour to comb out, and which, at the end, look the same as before, broken comb in hand….so, no, I never had hair which any product would put up as their poster-hair. And yet, I found that whether I went to parties or I went to church, while other poker-straight friends were passed by without a second glance, I would be stopped (often by women nonetheless!), to have my hair ooohed and aaahed at, and receive comments like “such lovely hair!”. “where did you get it permed from??”, “how much did it cost to get your hair done?”….and that’s when it hit me, (this was shortly after the second fatal attempt), that my curly locks, though not commercially perfect hair by far, were beautiful in their own way! What was more, in a world of poker straight strands, my curls stood out on their own (literally!), and people were actually willing to pay cash (I’m talking huge amounts!), to get hair like mine!!

That’s when I realized, that I should be proud to have my hair…for the sole reason that it is mine, I could never have had hair which suited me better, and most importantly, because “it’s different”, with a beauty of its own!

I often come across women, who have hidden curls….hidden because they could be out like mine, but are, instead, straightened, or tied back severely, or oiled and plaited away….now that would be perfectly fine, if those women were fine with it….but when they come to me and say “oh we wish we had hair like yours”, there’s only one thing I can say to them, “you do have hair like mine….maybe more curly, maybe less, maybe a different type of curl….but the point is, it is beautiful, and you could not have been given a more perfect gift….so please, free those locks, and be proud of the hair you were born with!”

Sometimes, I think that in the midst of all this commercial bombardment of ‘straight and silky’, people should harken back to their childhood lessons….to quote the words of the nursery rhyme, encapsulating perfect beauty, which my little 5 (almost 6) year old neighbour sings:

“Chubby cheeks, dimpled chin,
Rosy lips, teeth within,
Curly hair……..”

Need I say more?

Now, as a policy, I don't put up any of my poetry. But, I have decided to make an exception. Not because I think this poem is extraordinary, but because this is the first of my poems to appear anywhere. I'm not too sure about IPR issues with respect to putting up something one has already submitted somewhere and it was published, when one was the author of it....but I will worry about that only if I have to....or when I learn about IPR in fourth year, and my conscience gets the better of me. So well....here it is....my first poem to actually appear somewhere...it is now in the public domain, and I don't have to face my usual fears of someone snitching something off my blog.

What I Nearly Missed

A day grappling with the Constitution,
Nightmarish Articles and rights.
Project submissions threateningly near,
Stress levels were reaching new heights.

As evening clouds hung low, swollen with rain,
My weekly pilgrimage began.
An hour of traffic jams before I’d reach,
Nothing comforts, the way home can.

On the way, though, was a chore to complete,
A task I’d not done in a month.
But the ride was long, and I, all but gone,
And tempted to play the truant.

The rain became heavy, I had no choice,
Paid my fare and ran in the door.
Worship had begun, I hid in the crowds,
Tired and wet; chilled to the core.

There was love in the music, warmth in song,
My chilled soul thawed as I stood still.
Not for long; something raised my weary arms,
An unseen power, did that room, fill.

It was wonderful, the joy that I felt!
Praising Him-pleasure in itself!
Energy from somewhere, reviving me,
Alive! Forgot books on their shelf.

An hour, spent with people I didn’t know,
Yet bound; All saved by the same God.
I felt rejuvenated; this was home!
All gathered, to worship one Lord.

Meeting ended, I walked into the night,
Cold winds; but I barely noticed.
My faith was renewed; I felt ecstatic…
Imagine what I nearly missed!

Spontaneous

Occasionally, great joy can be derived from mundane acts, just because they are done in a different context.

My best moment this entire week was making a spontaneous decision to eat my lunch at 11:45 one day, and then sitting down on the side of the road and munching on turkey ham sandwiches.....the traffic went by, people stared.....I noticed how two struggling trees looked like sole survivors of a race imprisoned by the concrete buildings and flyover....and to top it off, two women with bundles of flowers came to sit next to me and started making garlands...the scent, in the midst of all the dust and pollution, was heavenly....and I could rejoice in eating turkey while people are so hung up on the bird flu.

A beautiful moment.....and made everything worthwhile.

Exam Rant

There should be a state holiday the day after tomorrow! That or I should catch a strange tropical disease...the kind that killed the silk worms in Mysore district, doubling the price of silk so that party A attempted to plead frustration of contract!

I don't want to write this exam. I want to curl up in a raft and sail away.

Carrier's liability indeed! Bah!

Twas the Night Before the Exam

There is something special about those nights just before the exams. The campus roads lie deserted for the most part, until you chance upon a group of haggard looking individuals taking crash courses from some stud or the other. But that isn't what I find the most striking about these nights. It is the sudden spurt of activities one would normally never do which is worth mentioning!

Dinners last for longer than usual, dieters are glimpsed with large cadbury bars in their pockets, drinkers look unusually sober, fighting roommates bond with great affection, in the hostel long profound conversations are held on the stairs, each one staying on for just five minutes more......holidays unlikely to happen are planned in great detail, careers and internships become far more important things to talk and think about than xeroxed class notes..........campus feels strangely more alive, more interactive, and far more conducive for making memories.

And then of course, there's the campus ghost, suddenly awakening to his dreadful lack of activity.....and that's when computers crash, and black-out's occur, so that Economic books are read by torchlight.

I feel so nostalgic, and could type forever....but then, it is just before the exams....