Naach!

Dance, with the ecstasy taking over
Move with the flow
Koi sharth nahi hai jo
Jus' madness...no boundaries...no rules...no reason
In the rains...storm even!
Bheegja Bheegja
Soak your soul in the music
On this beat...moment of life
No other...
Naach!!!

To Paris with Love...

I read this on lonely planet about Paris - http://www.lonelyplanet.com/france/paris/travel-tips-and-articles/42/35737. They talk about why Paris is really a place for romantic love and why the cliche holds. Back in 2004 when I visited Paris on official work, I remember feeling that cliche...thick in the air. It was summer and probably the best season to be outdoors, sip wine and canoodle in public spaces and metros, like they show in the movies...I tried to be scandalised, shocked, cynical or puritanical about it. But no! that attitude just crumbles and you begin to feel warm and nice and romantic even if you are the ultimate cynic! The city just does that to you.

I was working long hours with no time to brood about being alone, but that feeling of longing would creep in unexpectedly! My colleagues at the Vodafone lab where I worked would give me all the interesting info required by a tourist and I would take off after work almost everyday, to explore the city. Starting at dinner time, I would visit some place each day and get back just after midnight on the last metro! The sun would set only at 10pm and I felt completely safe. Although I stayed there for over a month, there were no free-from-work-weekends to take off to see the rest of France or Europe. I did manage do one weekend at Versailles on a cycling tour with a gang of Americans. That was fun! So were all the other 'Paris by night' and a couple of similar cycling trips I took with the same group. The ferry rides over river Seine were simply beautiful, where one could see people breaking into waltzes on the banks of the river or on the ferry itself....all those scenes from romantic Hollywood flicks which you never thought happened in real life! Managed to see the touristy and some less known places. Even managed to visit a jazz club where the music was live and the wine divine!

Left Paris when there was so much more left to do...check out Louvre a few more times, visit a cabaret, stand by the Seine in old Paris near Notre Dame, and so much more that I forget after all these years. But well...when I remember Paris...the first thing I seem to do is...SIGH...!!

Time never waits...

I am asked..."so u quit a cushy, really well paying, big sounding job and started on your own....any regrets?" Sets me thinking...."Yes just one....I should have quit much earlier and started on my own". Sounds like a haughty response, but hey! that's really true.
The older you get, the bigger the pay packet/office cabins/people-to-push-around gets and the larger the commitments and responsibilities and risks. Time only makes it harder to take any big step...not easier at all!
True for so many things in life. Single friends of mine in their 30s, especially women, tell me that there is no chance they are going to find someone to get married to. Their expectations are getting bigger and and choices smaller:-) One also gets so comfy and happy in one's comfort zone...its harder to change it even if it is for the better. But well...my single friends might be in a better zone already rather than being married...and this might be an exception here :-D

Change is not generally easy and passing of time only makes it so much harder. But once you push yourself to change, you look back and think, what was the fuss all about? One life to make the best of after all! And a smaller number of years if you leave out the times we were forced to be attending school and college and later hospitals to treat those knees or kidneys or whatever. To experience all there is to do...to give the best out....to indulge in small pleasures or larger ones....as they say "live life to the fullest".

If time waited for me to pause at an uncertain moment in life wouldnt it be great!? Let me sort out that pesky little thing and continue with the tick tock...but no....the tick tock goes on and gets louder especially when you are faced with the realities of biology of a human body and mind....and the vulnerabilities associated with it....

Will it ever end?

The quest for that 'something' in life...
Layers open up and reveal what they really were as I peel the old ones off
They force a bigger commitment out of me
So that I cant take off to the far away mountains whenever I want to
But is that the quest? - The faraway mountains...?
or will I reach there and feel the need to peel them off too?

Disruptions make me change
Change the way I think about things...things I would have never considered on my high horse long ago
Everything has a new meaning
I never stopped growing...learning
But how much disruption can I take?
Why do I seek out the disruptions myself?...aren't there enough coming my way already!
Will they disrupt me enough to become two different people?
All of us do wear masks...one for the outer world and another maskless face to oneself
but of late my masks seem unaware of the other
pulling in two different directions
tearing me apart!

What is it that I want to find?
Human happiness or something more divine?
Is there something more divine?
The human rules we live by govern what we need...and if I dont get what I need....
do I beg...borrow...steal.....grab....fret.....or....accept?
Will it end...the quest....will it end whatever I do?