Life : A Chinese Whisper

Life seems to play an interesting game with all of us. All our efforts, throughout our life are directed towards achieving a single goal, control of information/knowledge. Our actions in any role seem to revolve around this vital point. It is important to understand how this knowledge acquired, is to create an hierarchy on the basis of its control.

Information moves from various sources to us through various channels, with few vital facets lost in the way, which might be reconstructed by us for our own convenience, or are neglected. Similar to Chinese Whisper, it seems we need to understand that all that we possess is not all that it truly is. When one can respect this, I am sure we can understand our own limitations and be a better person.

Relationships : A Flickering Flame

Our efforts to create an impact, initiate a positive change, be successful seems to have an intrinsic drawback. It is actually hard for one to realize the influence, and can be easily over shadowed by our desire to celebrate the self. It is important to realize how every relationship we cherish, no matter how strong the emotion is, resembles the delicate subtlety of a flickering flame. In this post, I wish to discuss how we need to balance our emotions, accommodate enough space for critical emotions, even during our time of celebration.

The interesting feature of a diya is when we ignite it, we tend to protect it, give the needed care for a while and then we set it on its own. Then, we see the flame flicker in the gentle breeze, slowly settling into an isolated existence. After a while, if we try to push ourselves to protect it, we probably will be the reason for it to die down, or it will die a natural death. The reason I wanted to discuss this observation was to highlight the analogy between a diya and any emotion we share with our family or friends. We tend to appreciate and nurture the emotion at the start, and when we slowly expose it, the emotion flickers, like a flame seeking our attention to understand its gentle existence. If we choose to ignore it, and let it glow on its own strength, then it is reason enough for it to reach a stage of survival without attention dying a natural death. If we wish to protect the flame at a later stage, we carry a risk of putting it to rest ourselves. It is important that we understand this subtle reality and appreciate every emotion we share, no matter how strong it is... because its important to realize that there is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small flame, lets value it!

Saree: Discovering its Importance

P.S. : Before I proceed, I urge the readers to see this post as an attempt to understand the role of a saree, its importance in various spheres, clothing and beyond. I understand this post might create a genuine interest in men (I speak from experience) and also in women, at least to certain extent (It might well be useful to understand how a man views it). I hope each and every reader will enjoy reading the post without getting judgmental about it. Lastly, the photo on display is only a mix and match effort to suit the discussion, and not the true inspiration for this post.

For the benefit of the uninitiated, A sari is a strip of un-stitched cloth, ranging from four to nine meters in length that is draped over the body in various styles. The most common style is for the sari to be wrapped around the waist, with one end then draped over the shoulder. Now, let us understand how a saree, can influence our lives. Besides the obvious needs it addresses like providing warmth (as a part of clothing), social dignity; it also plays a vital role in structuring mindsets, and thus opinions and relationships. Considering the impact this piece of cloth can have, I wanted to spend sometime understanding it, and this post is an attempt to record few of my observations regarding the same.

Elaborating on my first point, Saree plays a leading role in influencing our minds regarding the attitude and outlook of the person. The reason I say this is pretty obvious, our clothing is an index of what we wish others to perceive us to be, ranging from rich linen to poor raw-cloth, our choice of cloth, design and the way we carry it off indicate our true self, and also define an image about us. This brings us to my second point, of creating an opinion, images of a person are a primary source of inspiration in framing an opinion about that person. Ranging from socially active to someone who prefers to be by himself/herself, an image of our dressing creates an opinion about us. Opinions make our social life, which is a pretty straight forward remark that can be easily seen. This connect between Sarees and our relationships has a secondary link as well, it is important to throw some light on how clothing enhances our image. Picking the right clothing, helps us to create a positive vibe, that can help bring people closer. In this regard, Saree I feel has the essentials to influence and create that needed vibe. I take this opportunity, to acknowledge my sincere appreciation for the creators of Saree...for it did, and will continue to influence our lives!

Being Vulnerable: Understanding Loneliness

In the past, I have made repeated attempts to understand what loneliness truly speaks of, and whereof it arises from. In this post, I wish to speak about my recent (and allow me to say, “ …the closest I could get to what truly it is” ) attempt in this endeavor. Before I proceed to speak about it, I wish to speak about few interesting, yet incomplete observations of such ambitious excursions in the past, seeking a better understanding of loneliness.

Two successive summers (2006 and 2007), I was in Italy, known as one of the most beautiful countries and home to scenic beauty. During this period, I made my first conscious effort in understanding what loneliness truly meant, and how to see it. I have been on my own before, been to different places before; all by me, but this experience was different, different in a way beyond comprehension. I started to understand how one is bound not only by the element of achievement in life, but also the use of such a feat. It is interesting to understand how emotional strength and emotional dependence go hand in hand. Most of the time, we feel emotional dependence makes us surrender, with emotional strength taking a hit. But, on the contrary, what makes us go the distance (be emotionally strong) is the dependence itself, the sense of attachment, the want to understand people whom we care for better, in an attempt to understand ourselves better.

My recent tryst with loneliness, is an interesting experience, I understood loneliness is felt when we are deserted by our own soul within. It is more to do with how we feel disconnected with our own self, than anything else. When one is not in complete harmony with his/her inner self (being poles apart), it will create a vacuum of confusion, and the need to meet the other end and come to amicable terms is not supported. This leads to further deepening of the divide, pushing us to feel left out, lonely seeking support to connect us with our self within, to establish the missing link…This makes one vulnerable to external influences, which might be good or bad. The decisive ability takes a back seat with the immediate need to establish the connection, which spirals into a bigger problem of losing further control over self.

This post is an attempt to record my understanding of loneliness, which I wish to further explore, to understand the need of the vulnerable. Comments are highly solicited.