BEING BORN AGAIN

Yesterday I had this strange dream..

I dreamt that I was being born in this planet,in this time-space,but remembering everything.And my mother was giving me a discourse of what all things I shall have to forget to grow up into a 40yr.old man again.

Before she made me forget everything-those few seconds before I would become the helpless child newly-born with no memory ,I had flashes of information wracking my head. I remembered that I have no official religion and it doesn't even have a name.It shall never have one.But it is not an organised religion.Organised religion is God-in-a-Web, the Great Spider in the centre of a thousand doctrines and rituals and mandatory beliefs.And people die in that web.So I have a nameless disorganised religion.I must have Something then.

I have a way of finding what is true for me.It is an experimental personal philosophy.And it will never have a name. Because a name is just a label.As soon as there's a label,ideas disappear and there is label-worship and label-bashing. And instead of living by a theme of ideas,people begin dying for labels.That the world needs a new religion is the last thing I wish for. My experimental privacy does not have a symbol. If it did have one, it wouldn't be an Om ,a star,or a crescent.If it were to have one,it shall be a cross without the bar-because I don't like 'bars'.

A cross without the bar is the number One.One in binary arithmetic means Not-Nothing, an Is instead of Isn't.One is the number of Life,no matter how many dreams I have,of Life.

A cross without a bar is the Capital 'I'.It reminds me that this nameless path is my personalised thinking-not to be suggested by circumstances.

A cross without the bar is a Little 'i'.It reminds me there's a test,with a question that awaits the end of every dream I have.

 
And I was born again in time-space.How strange it felt,being born!Hours ago I was safe,floating, happy,systems working warm and well.Now the mind is a control room at nuclear breakdown-full emergency.A hundred terror-bright, death-red warnings flashing:"Breathe now or die.Eat now or die.Falls kill,fire kills,water kills,enemies in the dark."

Never before have I seen so many bright precautions, and now I am wide-open,vulnerabl e and powerless,and I can't even sob the word for "HELP"!

I felt my mother reassuringly close to me.I wanted her to stay close till I've checked out on the fears of danger."Tell me Ma what was I doing here?Did I pick this life for me,or did you?" Ma had answers, but all my questions were cries of a wailing new-born.The choice seemed to be to close my eyes,shut down all systems,and sleep.So this was space-time,Land of no Other Choice.It is all blurs now but the more one sees,the worse it gets.Here is hunger, and thirst, and cold.

She stroked my head,as she said,"Little one,the dragons outnumber you,and they lie.You can choose.You have two choices..One- call their bluff,don't listen to their limits.Close your eyes,lift your spirit,remember who you are,beyond space,beyond time,never born,never dying..."
I relaxed,and let go.

"..and the physical world will raise a fist in victory-Dead! All eyes to swear your tiny body unbreathing, all flingers agree no pulse,sign a scroll to call your victory death."

Another Choice: "Win by losing. Defore your outer walls break, as break they must,if you are to stay,build an inner place to protect your Truth. Protect the fact that you are infinite life. Protect that the world you know exists with your consent and for your good reasons.. Protect that your purpose and mission is to shine love in your own playful life."

"Wow! Great to be here!And so much to learn"-I thought."Good. Yes,mortals love to learn.And I shall always love to learn.This seemed to be my first learning."

Appearance is reality.

Reality changes with time and space.

Nothing lies beyond space.

Atoms form, rule and end life.

Destiny is chance.Some people are lucky,some are not.To live is to win,to die is to lose.

Nothing exists until it is created physically in space-time.Everythi ng that is created,is destroyed.It is all a matter of time.

And Nothing exists after time.

Force is power.

Anger is the only warning one ever gets.

Fear is no defense.

Origin is luck.

Body is machine, of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, running on organic fuel. Body controls mind.

Mind is random electrical activity through brain.

There is one physical reality. It does not need one's consent for existence. One' s thought has zero effect on the reality of the physical world. There is no such thing as non-physical reality. Refuse these ideas and one shall die. Everything does not have an answer. The universe is un-knowable. Nothing important makes sense. I am the captain of my hidden space-ship, waiting to take me home. The crew we sign aboard our inner ship are navigators and helmsmen. We all meet them the moment we are ready or needful or curious to touch. We wait all these years to find someone who understands us, someone who accepts us as the persons we are,someone with a wizard's power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our demons in the darkest of nights, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Yesterday I found out that the magical Someone is the face we see in the mirror. It is us and our home-made Polygonal masks.

All these years,and at last we meet….

Well,it was just a dream yesterday night..

THANK YOU

My blog - DISSECTION OF CONSCIENCE : A DOCTOR'S DIARY has 14,050 followers/readers today. 
It's a delightful discovery, it's an incredible feeling and it's been a fascinating journey of learning together.  I can only say THANK YOU to all of you, as words fail me at the moment.
Learning is a never-ending process.
THANK YOU again.

RAM MOHAN ROY - A DOCUMENT,1829

A  SECOND CONFERENCE BETWEEN AN ADVOCATE FOR, AND AN OPPONENT OF, THE PRACTICE OF BURNING WIDOWS ALIVE 

CALCUTTA: 1829

"Advocate.—I alluded, in p. 18, l. 18, to the real reason for our anxiety to persuade widows to follow their husbands, and for our endeavours to burn them, pressed down with ropes: viz. that women are by nature of inferior understanding, without resolution, unworthy of trust, subject to passions, and void of virtuous knowledge; they, according to the precepts of the Shastru [Hindu sacred scriptures], are not allowed to marry again after the demise of their husbands, and consequently despair at once of all worldly pleasure: hence it is evident, that death to these unfortunate widows is preferable to existence; for the great difficulty which a widow may experience by living a purely ascetic life, as prescribed by the Shastrus, is obvious; therefore, if she do not perform Concremation, it is probable that she may be guilty of such acts as may bring disgrace upon her paternal and maternal relations, and those that may be connected with her husband. Under these circumstances, we instruct them from their early life in the idea of Concremation, holding out to them heavenly enjoyments in company with their husbands, as well as the beatitude of their relations, both by birth and marriage, and their reputation in this world. From this many of them, on the death of their husbands, become desirous of accompanying them; but to remove every chance of their trying to escape from the blazing fire, in burning them we first tie them down to the pile.

 

Opponent. –The reason you have now assigned for burning widows alive is indeed your true motive, as we are well aware; but the faults which you have imputed to women are not planted in their constitution by nature; it would be, therefore, grossly criminal to condemn that sex to death merely from precaution. By ascribing to them all sorts of improper conduct, you have indeed successfully persuaded the Hindoo community to look down upon them as contemptible and mischievous creatures, whence they have been subjected to constant miseries. I have, therefore, to offer a few remarks on this head.

Women are in general inferior to men in bodily strength and energy; consequently the male part of the community, taking advantage of their corporeal weakness, have denied to them those excellent merits that they are entitled to by nature, and afterwards they are apt to say that women are naturally incapable of acquiring those merits. But if we give the subject consideration, we may easily ascertain whether or not your accusation against them is consistent with justice. As to their inferiority in point of understanding, when did you ever afford them a fair opportunity of exhibiting their natural capacity? How then can you accuse them of want of understanding? If after instruction in knowledge and wisdom, a person cannot comprehend or retain what has been taught him, we may consider him as deficient; but as you keep women generally void of education and acquirements, you cannot, therefore, injustice pronounce on their inferiority.. . .Secondly. You charge them with want of resolution, at which I feel exceedingly surprised: for we constantly perceive, in a country where the name of death makes the male shudder, that the female, from her firmness of mind, offers to burn with the corpse of her deceased husband; and yet you accuse those women of deficiency in point of resolution.Thirdly. With regard to their trustworthiness, let us look minutely into the conduct of both sexes, and we may be enabled to ascertain which of them is the most frequently guilty of betraying friends. If we enumerate such women in each village or town as have been deceived by men, and such men as have been betrayed by women, I presume that the number of the deceived women would he found ten times greater than that of the betrayed men. Men are, in general, able to read and write, and manage public affairs, by which means they easily promulgate such faults as women occasionally commit, but never consider as criminal the misconduct of men towards women. One fault they have, it must be acknowledged; which is, by considering others equally void of duplicity as themselves, to give their confidence too readily, from which they suffer much misery, even so far that some of them are misled to suffer themselves to be burnt to death.In the fourth place, with respect to their subjection to the passions, this may be judged of by the custom of marriage as to the respective sexes; or one man may marry two or three, sometimes even ten wives and upwards; while a woman, who marries but one husband; desires at his death to follow him, forsaking all worldly enjoyments, or to remain leading the austere life of an ascetic."

BLACK SATURDAY - A PRAYER FOR NIRBHAYA

Today, 29th December,2012, enters the pages of History as Black Saturday.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy started his anti-Sati movement on 29th December. I am not writing the year intentionally, because I want you to look it up and read more. He was not a political leader, nor did he represent any NGO with a feminist slogan. All I know is that the Sati Act got formulated and implemented fast.

I feel strange, looking at the unprecedented people's movement i'm following over internet networks and national television. 

Is it a Deja Vu?

Sections of the AV media is wrong in choosing words. Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit was not "heckled" by protesters in Jantar-Mantar. She was "stopped". The people of Indians preserve the right to choose How to protest. Where was Sheila D for the last 2 weeks?Did she come today to protest?
"Heckled" paints the picture political, and we maintain Zero Tolerance towards Politicization of our expressions of anger and grief.. 

The worst disservice we can do to Nirbhaya's memory is let the movement die down. 
I appeal to India -    don't let this opportunity go. It's a movement for Freedom, Freedom from Fear, from Bias, from Misogynist mind-sets. 


We need to introspect today - all of us. 
We need to dissect our own conscience

ANOTHER DAY OF RECKONING

Months back, maybe a year back, I remember reading an article in the newspaper - the article being about a belief that says, " speak it out. Tell it."
And I remember a couple of movies where a character is speaking to the audience - "Bol do. Mann me mat rakhho."

In HUM TUM, a favourite movie of mine - at the end, (Karan)Saif Ali Khan, a cartoonist, addresses a media conference, on the occasion of the publication of his first novel the name of which is HUM TUM. He had fallen in and out of love with the same lady over a period of 10 years, he had everything possible under the sun, good and bad, except for a simple statement : " I love you".

He had tried to get the message across in many ways, or I should say "occasions" (some of them were hyper real, grandiose, funny) but each ended in disasters.

His lady love had got married in the meantime, and has been widowed too. Over a span of 10 years, Destiny made the two run across each other in a series of accidents, incidents and coincidences, they have come closer to each other listening to their own hearts, and everytime the simple message has failed to be put across before they have walked away. In the end, zero remains, discounting a myriad of memories, happy and traumatic, because the two hearts were not given a chance to speak and listen to each other.

In his autobiographical novel, he has written his story - a 10 year long story, in the span of which he has searched for the answer to "WHY?" (why didn't a relationship form over this period of time), and in the end he seems to have come upon the answer. And he has written a book.

"BOL DO. Tell it. Time doesn't wait for anybody or assure second chances, no matter what, when, where, and yes - Why." That's what he says in his reply to a question thrown in the media conference, and he tells the people what he has tried to tell a wider range of audience via his novel (which, thus, had become a necessity for him, and not just an intellectual exercise.) He says," tell. If you are in Love, tell her/him that. Let your heart have a voice, not a "heartbreak hotel" to cushion sufferings in silence, and unspoken truths.

This does not hold true only in love, but every relationship that involves respect & honesty of minds. It is an absolute necessity. "Be honest" is not what I'm trying to say.

That's all upto you, and sometimes you have to mull over that also (Yes I mean what I say in this blasphemous statement of mine). All I tell you all is : SPEAK YOUR HEART AND DO NOT WAIT.

In "Shakti" (another favourite movie of mine), I find the same truth being spoken though it is not what the movie pivots around. In a tragic tale of a gap which keeps on increasing over the movie, a son continues to move away to join the world of crime, from a father who is an honest police officer, and he has never compromised where upholding of justice is concerned - a factor that creates a misunderstanding and pushes his son further and further away.

But father and son always Loved each other. It's just that it never came to the surface to be expressed because of circumstantial priorities seized the situation. It comes to surface at the end of the movie. Dilip Kumar, the father, shoots down Amitabh Bachchan (the son) in a situation where law pursues crime.

In his last moments, a greivously wounded Bachchan tells a broken apart Dilip Kumar,"all this while, I had always loved you, Dad."
Dilip Kumar also speaks out his Truth and says, "I too loved you all this while, son." In the last sequence that makes me cry again and again, Bachchan's last words make a question," TO PAHELE KYUN NAHI BOLE DAD? Why didn't you say it before, Dad?"...

Why?

I mean why I'm writing all this today?
Though all questions don't have an answer even as life continues to be fair.

My own life and my own heart too have broken away a number of times in the past. Just like any other human being, I have been broken down very recently too.I am still recovering. But I am surviving, just like any other human being. I have kept on surviving every time.

I have to. I have to gather all the pieces and join them up just as I've done before each time. Because the next time, there has to be something to break into pieces.

I've wondered about all the possible reasons behind why I broke apart this time. The question tormented me.

Today I came to know why. Nope, no theatrics. One is slowly going beyonnd that. Hurt doesn't hurt me like before. Pain doesn't cause me pain like before.
The Ironical smile, quiet and stealthy, has crept into my face.

We have to live with Truth more often than not. A reality exists now at the beginning of which a Triviality, oh so so trifle. A reality that has its seeds in a Non- Reality. I shall move on with my dry smile, and yes of course, a voice that should remain silent forever.
Yet, I cannot but release this question free into the air where perhaps it will be floating aimlessly for ever.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME BEFORE?"

Sent from my BlackBerry --------------------------------------------- Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, Physician, Mumbai, India. http://jogyou963.blogspot.com Live Life on your own terms

Letters to my daughter : Our Origin, Our roots

Dearest Daughter,
You know for the last few days, I've been thinking about a specific reality. Every one does of course. We think WHY. Why are we here. Why is there the universe? Do we enjoy some special privilege in the entire universe? Is life relevant to the universe?

I realize that one won't get an answer by just contemplating. There has to be a method, a disciplined approach otherwise the seeker will lose his sanity in a jamborie of informations arranged haphazardly : past, present, future, history, geography, astronomy, spirituality, concept of God, the limits of a community, the entire infinite universe..one can collect informations about each of these. They becomer Knowledge in a human consciousness. Leave it at that, & it is useless.
You can make your brain a receptacle for informations : the content of the Library of Alexandria to theories of Hawking & Feynman, but that won't feed you, or provide extra shelter, or more importantly, knowledge can't improve a man or can make a man better. It all depends on our wish, intent, and an instinct to make ourselves more comfortable, with more peace & life, vis a vis a diminishing incidence of conceit, hatred & destruction. We all live life to achieve this, don't we?

There are ways to apply knowledge, be it a human being, or a family, or a community, or a sect , or ethnic and religious specificities, or political beliefs, or a social order or a nation. "Every thing wants more comfort & less struggle. It is this basic need of a fact around everything is happening in and around us every day." what do you think? Think about it, that helps you and a fellow human being.

And these things guided me over time to realise that
is an order by whi
ch I seek to understand Why.
I'd been thinking of our roots, our origin in our planet.
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

The men of wisdom in the ancient eras meditated to contemplate upon the Reason of Life, behind Birth and Death. Particularly in ancient India, during the Mid-Vedic period, the sages (today one of them would have been called the Philosopher of Philosophers) showed brilliant thinking, pondering over issues beyond staying alive, fighting for territory and of course continuing to reproduce and survive.

I run the risk of being marauded by specialist-anthropologists, for that I should add that these are personal thoughts -- calculated guesses, which tend to tie up loose strings in entirity for me, and I do not formally claim them even as hypotheses. It's just sharing of ideas, as in every human being lies the instinct, in varying degrees to seek for every 'Why' that he sees around him and the knowledge that has come to him down generations.

Anthropological study of the Vedic Period reveals that even the most advanced of civilisations lived with in a society which was based upon 'ethics of tribalism'. There was no precedence for these generations in any walk of life to look back upon, so they went by instincts as a member of Nature's family (just like other species of animals)

Here i get goosebumps to imagine in this tribal background, where people were busy trying to survive, the ancient sages sought answers in the metaphysical realm.

Summarisingly, the ancient wise have left the fruit of their metaphysical pursuits, and early Spiritualism across cultures teach us that our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures.

We should understand that the absolute universality of the law of causality does not necessarily limit a person's freedom, because the law of causality not only enables him to explain the past and predict the future, but also encourages him to use his intelligence to create new causes and attain new results.

Here lies the inherent beauty of Life -- its freedom imcluding epistemological freedom. This is the beauty of Nature ans the nature of Beauty. And that freedom prompts me to say that humankind is a great possibility.
Man can evolve phenomenally or he can remain stagnant - both are possible. That is the beauty of being human. It's for us to choose. Now it's for you to choose, right?
Sent from my BlackBerry --------------------------------------------- Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, Physician, Mumbai, India. http://jogyou963.blogspot.com Live Life on your own terms

'Nothing' did happen,

'Nothing' did happen, 'Nothing' did cease to exist

Gosh! The more you try to move away from something, the more it will chase you. And if it is something you love but Destiny decided that your love won't reach it and you move away from with a heart that is getting wrenched & re-wrenched, it shall appear in front of you in the most incredible of circumstances!

Here's a manuscript dated May 13, 2011. I don't remember a thing about it, why did I write it, was there any special occasion that made me happy as the man who wrote this.. I just can't remember.... Why didn't I post it then? How come I don't remember anything about it? In fact except for the emotions expressed, I would've denied writing it. But yes these were my moments I'd lived as the king of the world.

Times change. People change. Priorities change. But I have to be honest with these moments, with the emotions that made me so happy. It's like your child. You created it. No matter what happens, you can't dent it. You can lie to yourself, to the entire world, you can cheat every possible thing that has been Created, but you can't be dishonest with your own Creation! You decided to create it. You did create it, it became a truth in life.
Perhaps the only thing about which you can assert your right even in front of Creation itself, is your own creation.
Be it a life, be it a thought, be it a word that came out of the deepest depth of your heart. Because it would be representing you when you won't be there. The only truth about the fact that you had been.

Well I am posting it with a smile, the smile that appears in your face when you perceive everything as an irony and an emotion would simply refuse to come to take care of you.

Why does Irony make one smile? Perhaps you do find everything as a part of a script, and nothing happens out of line. And at times you realize that giving truth a shape can be the same as burying it. You find it funny.
- - -------------------------------------
Dated : 13/05/2011

A few days back Priyanka just took a picture, of me and Maya -- both of us, while being engrossed in each other and whispering to each other to share our classified secrets, were completely oblivious of 'The Outside', turned towards the photographer when she said - "just turn".. Maya turned two on 20th.April.

As I looked at the picture, and memories, two years old, rushed through my mind, leaving me a bit overwhelmed too. It was 10 days after Maya was born that I reconnected with the batch of '87, with you all. I was an insecure father then, a rookie who took slow, gawky steps towards the realization that I had a new 'job', a new 'responsibility' -- something which used to keep me edgy and tentative all the time. I used to get taut suddenly, every time I heard the world telling me in blow-hot blow-cold whispers,
-- "ok you are a father now Ani".

That reconnection moulded my life drastically. Maybe Destiny had kept planned for me, a phase of 'Respite' during that phase of my life -- Maya being born, and me reconnecting with people who used to be classmates, whose hearts and minds were pleasantly new for me. I still have this underlying feeling that these were people I didn't know earlier, and they all came in a rush to greet me back into a normal happy life -- something which had always enticed me to dream anew, only to disappear once again just when I was settling down with reassurance -- reacting to which I stopped dreaming once upon a time.

I felt complete. All the gaping lacunae in me, through which all the good things kept on slipping (some of which I had let slip helplessly). All of them seem to complement me, filling up each lacuna in some way or the other, giving the facet of my newly gained fatherhood a sense of completeness.

I remember reading a book "FATHER and DAUGHTER"? Maya was a little more than a month old. I remember being alone at home, with Priyanka still at her mother's place in Pune with a newborn Maya. I kept on dreaming as I read the beautifully simple words through the pages.. now each time I read the book, I realize how it had kept me silently inspired , and I seem to discover my own self in the father who had written the book. Nothing can be more close to the reality of happiness that the book keeps treasured for me..

Can anything ever get better than this? I feel so humbly blessed -- the same life, a stretch of which I had just trudged along because I had nothing else constructive to do, I didn't have anybody to live for, one for whom I'd work hard to give happiness. I was never a 'strong man with masculine confidence'.(I guess I can never be one). It's just that I had never been a quitter ( I guess I'm trying to sugar- coat the stubbornness, the suppressed arrogance and the desperate anger, inherent facets which I have never really tried to get rid off, because I never really regretted them)..

And so I just kept living each day without asking questions about the absence of a pivot, around which I would live to work towards a goal. Each day from February 2000 to May 2007- the 31st. to the 38th.decade of my life still seem the same, I don't remember any prominent event to recount a special date in this period. Then of course I 'ran' into Priyanka, in the most dramatic of circumstances.. [ I'll recount the Romance of my life some other day.. :-) ] 

I guess I got off-track..coming back to the 'self-centered' self of mine [ just count the number of 'I's  'I' have written above and you will feel me justified in my self- mockery :-) ]

I'm just being honest, just laying bare the facts of my recent past. And it's not a formal acknowledgment of anything. It's just incidental that you have just become inherent parts of the reality of my life. I've interacted with you publicly and in privacy, and it's all about sharing my own reality here, of times remote or recent, so I couldn't have written otherwise.

Today I'm a happy father and a husband, and even in my worst moments of the occasional day that finds the moon a rare blue, is never forlorn of hope. And that is why I want to live my life to the full, and want to make the entire distance, collecting more and more happiness to gift and share with Priyanka and Maya, making sure no step takes a short cut and every effort arises out of a peace so perfect, that emanates from Honesty. No matter what.

I hope to do something good for persons I haven't yet come across, taking that extra step to give a little respite of happiness for those who need or deserve. My life tells me to. Maya tells me to. Just like life urged me to write down these disjointed thoughts to each one of you, that seem to be connected with a vagueness I can't understand. Not that I want to.
-----------------------------------------

Did I give birth to it? Or did I write an elegy on its epitaph? No idea. Anybody?
Sent from my BlackBerry --------------------------------------------- Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, Physician, Mumbai, India. http://jogyou963.blogspot.com Live Life on your own terms

'Nothing' happened

'Nothing' did happen, 'Nothing' did cease to exist

Gosh! The more you try to move away from something, the more it will chase you. And if it is something you love but Destiny decided that your love won't reach it and you move away from with a heart that is getting wrenched & re-wrenched, it shall appear in front of you in the most incredible of circumstances!

Here's a manuscript dated May 13, 2011. I don't remember a thing about it, why did I write it, was there any special occasion that made me happy as the man who wrote this.. I just can't remember.... Why didn't I post it then? How come I don't remember anything about it? In fact except for the emotions expressed, I would've denied writing it. But yes these were my moments I'd lived as the king of the world.

Times change. People change. Priorities change. But I have to be honest with these moments, with the emotions that made me so happy. It's like your child. You created it. No matter what happens, you can't dent it. You can lie to yourself, to the entire world, you can cheat every possible thing that has been Created, but you can't be dishonest with your own Creation! You decided to create it. You did create it, it became a truth in life.
Perhaps the only thing about which you can assert your right even in front of Creation itself, is your own creation.
Be it a life, be it a thought, be it a word that came out of the deepest depth of your heart. Because it would be representing you when you won't be there. The only truth about the fact that you had been.

Well I am posting it with a smile, the smile that appears in your face when you perceive everything as an irony and an emotion would simply refuse to come to take care of you.

Why does Irony make one smile? Perhaps you do find everything as a part of a script, and nothing happens out of line. And at times you realize that giving truth a shape can be the same as burying it. You find it funny.
- - -------------------------------------
Dated : 13/05/2011

A few days back Priyanka just took a picture, of me and Maya -- both of us, while being engrossed in each other and whispering to each other to share our classified secrets, were completely oblivious of 'The Outside', turned towards the photographer when she said - "just turn".. Maya turned two on 20th.April.

As I looked at the picture, and memories, two years old, rushed through my mind, leaving me a bit overwhelmed too. It was 10 days after Maya was born that I reconnected with the batch of '87, with you all. I was an insecure father then, a rookie who took slow, gawky steps towards the realization that I had a new 'job', a new 'responsibility' -- something which used to keep me edgy and tentative all the time. I used to get taut suddenly, every time I heard the world telling me in blow-hot blow-cold whispers,
-- "ok you are a father now Ani".

That reconnection moulded my life drastically. Maybe Destiny had kept planned for me, a phase of 'Respite' during that phase of my life -- Maya being born, and me reconnecting with people who used to be classmates, whose hearts and minds were pleasantly new for me. I still have this underlying feeling that these were people I didn't know earlier, and they all came in a rush to greet me back into a normal happy life -- something which had always enticed me to dream anew, only to disappear once again just when I was settling down with reassurance -- reacting to which I stopped dreaming once upon a time.

I felt complete. All the gaping lacunae in me, through which all the good things kept on slipping (some of which I had let slip helplessly). All of them seem to complement me, filling up each lacuna in some way or the other, giving the facet of my newly gained fatherhood a sense of completeness.

I remember reading a book "FATHER and DAUGHTER"? Maya was a little more than a month old. I remember being alone at home, with Priyanka still at her mother's place in Pune with a newborn Maya. I kept on dreaming as I read the beautifully simple words through the pages.. now each time I read the book, I realize how it had kept me silently inspired , and I seem to discover my own self in the father who had written the book. Nothing can be more close to the reality of happiness that the book keeps treasured for me..

Can anything ever get better than this? I feel so humbly blessed -- the same life, a stretch of which I had just trudged along because I had nothing else constructive to do, I didn't have anybody to live for, one for whom I'd work hard to give happiness. I was never a 'strong man with masculine confidence'.(I guess I can never be one). It's just that I had never been a quitter ( I guess I'm trying to sugar- coat the stubbornness, the suppressed arrogance and the desperate anger, inherent facets which I have never really tried to get rid off, because I never really regretted them)..

And so I just kept living each day without asking questions about the absence of a pivot, around which I would live to work towards a goal. Each day from February 2000 to May 2007- the 31st. to the 38th.decade of my life still seem the same, I don't remember any prominent event to recount a special date in this period. Then of course I 'ran' into Priyanka, in the most dramatic of circumstances.. [ I'll recount the Romance of my life some other day.. :-) ] 

I guess I got off-track..coming back to the 'self-centered' self of mine [ just count the number of 'I's  'I' have written above and you will feel me justified in my self- mockery :-) ]

I'm just being honest, just laying bare the facts of my recent past. And it's not a formal acknowledgment of anything. It's just incidental that you have just become inherent parts of the reality of my life. I've interacted with you publicly and in privacy, and it's all about sharing my own reality here, of times remote or recent, so I couldn't have written otherwise.

Today I'm a happy father and a husband, and even in my worst moments of the occasional day that finds the moon a rare blue, is never forlorn of hope. And that is why I want to live my life to the full, and want to make the entire distance, collecting more and more happiness to gift and share with Priyanka and Maya, making sure no step takes a short cut and every effort arises out of a peace so perfect, that emanates from Honesty. No matter what.

I hope to do something good for persons I haven't yet come across, taking that extra step to give a little respite of happiness for those who need or deserve. My life tells me to. Maya tells me to. Just like life urged me to write down these disjointed thoughts to each one of you, that seem to be connected with a vagueness I can't understand. Not that I want to.
-----------------------------------------

Did I give birth to it? Or did I write an elegy on its epitaph? No idea. Anybody?

Sent from my BlackBerry --------------------------------------------- Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, Physician, Mumbai, India. http://jogyou963.blogspot.com Live Life on your own terms

PATRIOTISM & CONFUSION

Dearest Daughter, 26/01/2012

This is a little note I'm actually writing to my friends in Facebook, but wanted you to know about this, so all of you read together.

Yesterday, during a casual online hit chat, me and my recently introduced lady friend came to the extremely relevant to our contemporary times, now oft-trodden pasture of Patriotism. I am an Indian and live in Mumbai,(my dear friend resides in a foreign land) and so it wasn't long before Bollywood movies were invited into the virtual dialogue.

I'm still feeling bad because I guess I startled her big time by replying, "Pyaasa", when she asked what were my favourite movies on Patriotism.

During any interaction of mine about country, pride, patriotism, idealism. ( :-) etc..you know the drill) elements of loud (& empty) rhetoric and jingoism frequently rush in fast which soon make it center-stage, pushing the actual topic off it. I'm trying hard and am hopeful that soon I'll fully realize the futility, the futility of playing host to vices like these,) and grandstanding should follow Content, and not precede it.

I'm disappointed that I couldn't succeed at least yesterday as the nonsuspectingly poor lady showed strong expressions, of shock and disbelief.

I am trying hard and since morning I've been doing that only. It's a tedious job making a refreshed list which should contain national flags, wars and sacrifices and soldiers and firepower and bazookas and car pert-bombings..
Certainly not "Pyaasa'.

Old habits die hard. I am a bit disconcerted, so here I am once again having a problem in problematic times, searching an answer. Pleading for Help as always.
This problem compels me to go back in time so that I remember a few things.

I was 10 years old.
Our recently purchased television was in a wooden cabinet, which had a wooden double-door entry.
Movies shown on Door Darshan on Saturday afternoon, had a crowd of curious audience, overawed and revelling in magical monochrome melody.

One Saturday afternoon, it was 'Pyaasa'. Ma was visibly excited and happy, ready to watch an old favourite,
and songs that perhaps used to make her reminisce of her emotions during her teen years...(she was frank about that trait with me in privacy). I didn't feel very deep though. But yes, what classics used to be composed in Hindi movies! The gems were immortalized - as we see around us today.

Sometime during the movie, I went out to answer nature's loud call. On my way back, nature silenced for now, I was still outside the room when
I heard a song coming out of the TV.
It was Mohammed Raft's voice, lipped by Guru Dutt,
I don't know what it was. I still don't kno. At that age I could understand Hindi to an extent that could cover day to day demands of survival. I hadn't understood many sequences in the movie, particularly why sad expressions persisted even after the saddening causes were taken care of (I was completely ignorant about complexities of the human mind, of things fine and nuance, if unchecked would result in complications.)

I don't know what was it. I still don't.
It was Mohammed Raft's voice, slipped by Guru Dutt, his soulful eyes and his thin yet prominent and deep furrows that looked over frowned brows, eyes that were fatigued and sad, trying to hide an intense fire that raged on till his death.

" KAHA HAIN,
JISSE NAAZ HAIN HIND PAR,
WOH KAHA HAIN,
KAHA HAIN
KAHA HAIN.......?....."

I still have goosebumps. It was an overwhelming wave of previously unthinkable courage, of Hope that told me that there are many things of interest outside the world of books, paint brushes, cricket and school. It told me that one day I have to think deeply which shall direct the script of every day of the life I'll live.

Dearest Khuku, I have come here to ask your loving aunts & uncles this question because I don't know. Before that I'll tell you what I know at the moment - patriotism is not meant to be instilled in times of war and bloodshed. It is already there during Creation, it is there when a child is born, so that it can identify it as an intended suggestion already put so that no war & bloodshed take place.
Let both of us chase them now.
Sent from my BlackBerry --------------------------------------------- Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, Physician, Mumbai, India. http://jogyou963.blogspot.com Live Life on your own terms

Letters to my daughter : Patriotism & Confusion

Dearest Daughter, 26/01/2012

This is a little note I'm actually writing to my friends in Facebook, but wanted you to know about this, so all of you read together.

Yesterday, during a casual online hit chat, me and my recently introduced lady friend came to the extremely relevant to our contemporary times, now oft-trodden pasture of Patriotism. I am an Indian and live in Mumbai,(my dear friend resides in a foreign land) and so it wasn't long before Bollywood movies were invited into the virtual dialogue.

I'm still feeling bad because I guess I startled her big time by replying, "Pyaasa", when she asked what were my favourite movies on Patriotism.

During any interaction of mine about country, pride, patriotism, idealism. ( :-) etc..you know the drill) elements of loud (& empty) rhetoric and jingoism frequently rush in fast which soon make it center-stage, pushing the actual topic off it. I'm trying hard and am hopeful that soon I'll fully realize the futility, the futility of playing host to vices like these,) and grandstanding should follow Content, and not precede it.

I'm disappointed that I couldn't succeed at least yesterday as the nonsuspectingly poor lady showed strong expressions, of shock and disbelief.

I am trying hard and since morning I've been doing that only. It's a tedious job making a refreshed list which should contain national flags, wars and sacrifices and soldiers and firepower and bazookas and car pert-bombings..
Certainly not "Pyaasa'.

Old habits die hard. I am a bit disconcerted, so here I am once again having a problem in problematic times, searching an answer. Pleading for Help as always.
This problem compels me to go back in time so that I remember a few things.

I was 10 years old.
Our recently purchased television was in a wooden cabinet, which had a wooden double-door entry.
Movies shown on Door Darshan on Saturday afternoon, had a crowd of curious audience, overawed and revelling in magical monochrome melody.

One Saturday afternoon, it was 'Pyaasa'. Ma was visibly excited and happy, ready to watch an old favourite,
and songs that perhaps used to make her reminisce of her emotions during her teen years...(she was frank about that trait with me in privacy). I didn't feel very deep though. But yes, what classics used to be composed in Hindi movies! The gems were immortalized - as we see around us today.

Sometime during the movie, I went out to answer nature's loud call. On my way back, nature silenced for now, I was still outside the room when
I heard a song coming out of the TV.
It was Mohammed Raft's voice, lipped by Guru Dutt,
I don't know what it was. I still don't kno. At that age I could understand Hindi to an extent that could cover day to day demands of survival. I hadn't understood many sequences in the movie, particularly why sad expressions persisted even after the saddening causes were taken care of (I was completely ignorant about complexities of the human mind, of things fine and nuance, if unchecked would result in complications.)

I don't know what was it. I still don't.
It was Mohammed Raft's voice, slipped by Guru Dutt, his soulful eyes and his thin yet prominent and deep furrows that looked over frowned brows, eyes that were fatigued and sad, trying to hide an intense fire that raged on till his death.

" KAHA HAIN,
JISSE NAAZ HAIN HIND PAR,
WOH KAHA HAIN,
KAHA HAIN
KAHA HAIN.......?....."

I still have goosebumps. It was an overwhelming wave of previously unthinkable courage, of Hope that told me that there are many things of interest outside the world of books, paint brushes, cricket and school. It told me that one day I have to think deeply which shall direct the script of every day of the life I'll live.

Dearest Khuku, I have come here to ask your loving aunts & uncles this question because I don't know. Before that I'll tell you what I know at the moment - patriotism is not meant to be instilled in times of war and bloodshed. It is already there during Creation, it is there when a child is born, so that it can identify it as an intended suggestion already put so that no war & bloodshed take place.

Let both of us chase them now.
Sent from my BlackBerry --------------------------------------------- Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, Physician, Mumbai, India. http://jogyou963.blogspot.com Live Life on your own terms

Letters to my daughter : It's 26th. January

Today is a special day - Republic Day! You should have read these lines on a 26th January itself, I think I would have chatted with more vigour and wider smiles.
So now you know that Baba is smiling big today right? So keep smiling with me, along the entire stretch we'll go together today.

I know you might be busy preparing for Republic Day, that's your favourite day right? Are you sitting there with paper rolls, thin sticks and pastelle pencils?? Baba knows what his Princess is doing. Making India's flag, our Tricolour. I used to do exactly the same when I was your age. Yet I don't think I could draw better than you are doing at the moment..

Take a look at what you are clasping now.
Isn't she beautiful? The grace and the gentle waves along which she dances in the wind, breath-taking and reassuring -- Our Tricolour, the mother of our inspiration, the holy garment which India drapes around herself.

An evergreen spring to harvest crops,
A pristine unblemished Truth in white,
The spiritual strength of India that keeps on evolving showing us all the way to a saffron sunrise of Wisdom..

Just do this : Close your eyes and think that you are somewhere in a foreign land. No other Indian's present. All are from different countries, different tongues speaking unknown languages. If one asks you WHO are you, what will you say?
Think, close your eyes and think. WHAT SHALL YOU SaY? MAYBE NOTHING comes to your mind for the first few seconds.

Let me tell you. Visualize our flag, our own tricolour. Think about it. Forget your parents, and if I had the chance to tell others I would've told them to forget, for a moment, wife, family, children, friends, and just think.

Think when was the first time you saw the tricolour. When was the second time? Think of the tricolour when you were in class VII, in high school. In college. One night when you might've thought about it for an extended 5 minutes and might have had goosebumps? Feeling our entire India awake, and breathing air. This is one of those days when India lives too, with all of us.

now look up again. The Tricolour. This is what that is keeping people united, where there is no threat, you and every other person are watching it high and flying. Remember our national anthem........

Is there a tear in your eye? Don't answer me. you have the answer and keep it to yourself..

Patriotism is inside all of you. It's presence faces a denial at times, when we confront our reality, trying to live through demanding situations of hard-core reality to wake up to another tomorrow. It's just that our priorities change for some time. But patriotism is never forgotten.

Why do we confront such situations?
So that the way we live doesn't change. Stability of our own selves in our respective places in the greater scheme of things. If we go through the situation, we return to our original places, following a belief - the instinct of Patriotism.

It's up to us to maintain it -- when to express, how long. If one's cause is just, he or she gets the right answers.
Keep Smiling.
Sent from my BlackBerry --------------------------------------------- Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, Physician, Mumbai, India. http://jogyou963.blogspot.com Live Life on your own terms

LETTERS TO MY DAUGHTER : Making Mistakes, making up.

If you are looking here and there while reading this, looking for Baba & wondering why he isn't there, stop. I'm just there around you. I can see through your eyes, I can breathe fresh air as you take a breath. You are never without me. So don't ever feel lonely when you are alone. Right?
Here's another day from Baba's life which I thought you should read. It's just a story from the myriad of stories we are always writing, as we exist. Every story has some significance no matter how small & unfinished it maybe.

t is one of those moments that you feel guilty, for everything you notice. A painful, hurting luxury one can afford to indulge after eating, quenching hunger and thirst.
"what am I supposed to do actually in life?" this question started to echo from one part of my brain to another, when I found out for yet another time that it's impossible to make everybody happy at the same time. Whatever you do, or refrain from doing, will hurt someone or the other.
You don't want to, but it happens. It is impossible to make things happen in another way, under another set of rules. You can stop making a sound, but you cannot stop an echo. You have to wait till it dies out..
As I asked this question, throwing it to the wind I have this wrong hope that the wind will carry it to places you haven't thought of.
It's all about survival. It's a battle. Yet even when you prepare yourself for a battle, you find out there is no code which limits the battle.

Right from school to walking the pavements picking up crumbs, I was taught so many things. To equip myself with the necessary informations so that I can live when I grow up.
But it's not only about learning. More and more. You are impressed by a unwritten "code" - how you use this knowledge.

Society as an institution survives each day by comission and omission too. To comit what is correct, and omitting everything which is not. It's not only Action but also the calibrated Inaction that makes our tomorrow,.

Here is where the emotional fool, the pseudo idealist trips again. You find that it's just not about reaching the finishing line.
A luminous voice tells me that it's about everybody. Everybody is doing the same thing as you are. Struggling to survive.
Still you see that struggling to survive is not only to stride ahead.
It's also about making sure that others don't. You shove and push others who are running in the race. It is Cheating. They cheat you. They exploit your idea of a healthy competition.
Is it a race which doesn't have any rules? No gold standard is there that will ensure that it is fair, no cheating is allowed? Are our lives so unscrupulous?

The voice assures me - no cheating is not part of your survival. But saving yourself from being cheated is. Life is not unfair. It always leaves an option for you.

That figures. To save yourself from being cheated is part of the struggle to survive. It's not just a job. It's a part of your existence. Do everything to survive. To survive famines and psunamis, to survive holocausts and mass genocides to survive to keep your identity in a family or outside that, a community. It is here where the question 'WHY' loses objectivity, it becomes a subjective exercise. There can't be no answer ever because the question itself is flawed. I can't go to Wikipedia or Google search just because nobody answers my question. It's a flawed question. We all have to fend for ourselves. That is of course a different story, a different life. You have to look inwards, not outside for help, for. Moments which give you courage, direction and focus to whatever you are doing.

I guess I got part of the answer I was seeking. I have to find the rest myself. Doing that is Survival.
Sent from my BlackBerry --------------------------------------------- Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, Physician, Mumbai, India. http://jogyou963.blogspot.com Live Life on your own terms

ONE DAY AT A TIME

t is one of those moments that you feel guilty, for everything you notice. A painful, hurting luxury one can afford to indulge after eating, quenching hunger and thirst.
"what am I supposed to do actually in life?" this question started to echo from one part of my brain to another, when I found out for yet another time that it's impossible to make everybody happy at the same time. Whatever you do, or refrain from doing, will hurt someone or the other.
You don't want to, but it happens. It is impossible to make things happen in another way, under another set of rules. You can stop making a sound, but you cannot stop an echo. You have to wait till it dies out..
As I asked this question, throwing it to the wind I have this wrong hope that the wind will carry it to places you haven't thought of.
It's all about survival. It's a battle. Yet even when you prepare yourself for a battle, you find out there is no code which limits the battle.

Right from school to walking the pavements picking up crumbs, I was taught so many things. To equip myself with the necessary informations so that I can live when I grow up.
But it's not only about learning. More and more. You are impressed by a unwritten "code" - how you use this knowledge.

Society as an institution survives each day by comission and omission too. To comit what is correct, and omitting everything which is not. It's not only Action but also the calibrated Inaction that makes our tomorrow,.

Here is where the emotional fool, the pseudo idealist trips again. You find that it's just not about reaching the finishing line.
A luminous voice tells me that it's about everybody. Everybody is doing the same thing as you are. Struggling to survive.
Still you see that struggling to survive is not only to stride ahead.
It's also about making sure that others don't. You shove and push others who are running in the race. It is Cheating. They cheat you. They exploit your idea of a healthy competition.
Is it a race which doesn't have any rules? No gold standard is there that will ensure that it is fair, no cheating is allowed? Are our lives so unscrupulous?

The voice assures me - no cheating is not part of your survival. But saving yourself from being cheated is. Life is not unfair. It always leaves an option for you.

That figures. To save yourself from being cheated is part of the struggle to survive. It's not just a job. It's a part of your existence. Do everything to survive. To survive famines and psunamis, to survive holocausts and mass genocides to survive to keep your identity in a family or outside that, a community. It is here where the question 'WHY' loses objectivity, it becomes a subjective exercise. There can't be no answer ever because the question itself is flawed. I can't go to Wikipedia or Google search just because nobody answers my question. It's a flawed question. We all have to fend for ourselves. That is of course a different story, a different life. You have to look inwards, not outside for help, for. Moments which give you courage, direction and focus to whatever you are doing.
Thank you Suman Bhowmik. I guess I got part of the answer I was seeking. I have to find the rest myself. Doing that is Survival
Sent from my BlackBerry --------------------------------------------- Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, Physician, Mumbai, India. http://jogyou963.blogspot.com Live Life on your own terms

TAGGING FAITH

In the darkest of hours, a voice always appears and tells me that there IS light outside.

What pains me is to observe Frailty, of Emotions that unite & create & sustain, becoming the Fragility of our handful of scruples which breaks & destroys, and even then we try to made justifiable, just for the sake of justification.

I am scared too - Coz I've suffered in Light as much as in Darkness. I shall survive till tomorrow but not before a part of me which used to love and believe, has perished forever. I shall be a less trusting guy tomorrow even as I shall be sitting down to teach my child all about Trust. Even I will forget that I was scared once.

Till now I used to believe that Trust and Faith are unconditional, and it is a free access to reach & touch these abstracts,

Everything comes with a tag. Or am I dreaming that I am in a mall?
Sent from my BlackBerry --------------------------------------------- Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, Physician, Mumbai, India. http://jogyou963.blogspot.com Live Life on your own terms

TAGGING FAITH

In the darkest of hours, a voice always appears and tells me that there IS light outside.

What pains me is to observe Frailty, of Emotions that unite & create & sustain, becoming the Fragility of our handful of scruples which breaks & destroys, and even then we try to made justifiable, just for the sake of justification.

I am scared too - Coz I've suffered in Light as much as in Darkness. I shall survive till tomorrow but not before a part of me which used to love and believe, has perished forever. I shall be a less trusting guy tomorrow even as I shall be sitting down to teach my child all about Trust. Even I will forget that I was scared once.

Till now I used to believe that Trust and Faith are unconditional, and it is a free access to reach & touch these abstracts,

Everything comes with a tag. Or am I dreaming that I am in a mall?
Sent from my BlackBerry --------------------------------------------- Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, Physician, Mumbai, India. http://jogyou963.blogspot.com Live Life on your own terms