'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

THE NOTE IN THE CUPBOARD

[Introuction :
There is this very poignant Bengali movie song : Chole jete jete din bole jaye..sung by Lata Mangeshkar. The movie : Mon Niye

The movie doesn't exactly concur with my generation, but the song is so well revered that one from my generation has grown up with the song as an integral part of cultural statement that an average Bengali family puts out.

The song has a gentle pathos, with a strongly fatalistic overtone. As if she knows how near the reality of death, but she's not afraid. She tries to find reason in life's realities, and lets a calmness pervading her being with which she romanticizes death as not an absolute end. Death opens for her a door, a gateway into a future, something she is hopeful of continuing her journey, mulling over the reality of life which merges with another reality, that of death.
My mother used to love this song.]

My first ever full bar scale changing harmonica befriended me on my 11th birthday. It was a very pleasant surprise when I saw her nicely dressed pack in Ma"s hand - a simple token of a simple love that a simple pair of ma -son. Years later it became quite disjointed and was definitely not making the right noises. I retired her. My mother said she'll keep it s' where 'safe' as a memento.

Twenty five years, it was the 14th-15th day after she expired, I was just reorganising photographs In her wardrobe. Here was a simple piece of paper gently Folded in the "locker' of her wardrobe. I took it out and opened the folds with a rather stoic frown. And here was this song, the words written by her looping hand-writing.

I wouldn't say much about what transpired between the lock inside me & the unlocked locker, except for the fact that she loved this song very much - I just paying tributes to the departed soul,by simple reminiscences.

I found it a bit "queer" which ended with a silent smile of mine - why would somebody write a song, a popular song, and keep it in a locker which was unlocked all the time. (apologies for My seeming insenstivity).

I guess I'd ve found it queer all my life. As I put my hand to place it (I remember taking a long time folding) and my fingers touched cold metal.
As I lowered my head for visual inspection, I saw my first harmonica which she, actually had used a paperweight of sorts the ensured that folds of the piece were kept crisp.

Too many 'M's. Music Morher Metal Memory! MADNESS?
Ok you show me the madness, I 'll show ORDER.
Let's Move on.
Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri,
Physician,
Mumbai, India.
http://jogyou963.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------------------
Live Life on your own terms

EK HI THAPPAD?!

When we saw Mr. Sharad Pawar getting slapped on TV, most of us chuckled. We thought,"this was imminent". We may or may not don't sympathise with Harvinder Singh's cause, our eyes and minds were on Sharad Pawar. Not Sharad Pawar as the Union Minister in isolation.

What we nodded to is that India's politiical class was slapped by one from the public. Don't we wish this happened more frequently? Political leaders, representing us stalling Parliament for 3 consecutive days didn't take our permission, when entire India is waiting relief from inflation, corruption and despondency. We are irritated and confused, wondering how would the people we voted for tackle issues if they stopped the process of legislation.

But when Anna Hazare's "Ek hi thappad Mara"becomes a slip of tongue, we would be lying to ourslves.

I felt alienated from the leader, who as a Gandhian showed Satyagaha is relevant even now. Not for a second did he resort to firing up supporters. That made us proud. We can say proudly and loudly : Yes we subjugated the poltical class without resorting "formal politics". We attracted their worried attention without clashing with the police, & burning buses. Discreet dissent voiced by a united India did the trick.

And now that the masses have taken an "off", ready to rally behind a people's leader if needed. We are confident because we discovered the strength of the citizen of democratic India. We do not wince over any incident that degraded man in front of man.

I didn't see the Anna Hazare the leader in the social activist who asked "EK Hi Thappad" with a previously unseen brashness and in a mocking tone that we didn't see before. It made me frown and I nodded my head from side to side.

We have rallied behind this social activist which ultimately made the Parliament bend over. He was a good leader because his points were uncomplicated, he spoke in a languge which we laugh,cry and lament in our personal lives.

The Lokpal Movement (in which I participated too) is theoretically undemocratic, broke rule books but we strove on with mild resistance in our way because all of us knew the end would be affecting the times beyond it. It had a message. Lokpal or not, a good leader can still mobilise good Will, and no codes, laws, amendments can in the way of a billion Indians chanting the same words, rooting for the same cause, cutting across caste, religion. It revealed the actual might of Indian democracy. In unision for the sae cause, no bullets are required. Peaceful Satyagraha is our democratic weapon.

Anna led us from the front. The leader brought rural and urban India to protest together in peaceful coexistene. It was ethical, discreet - something one shall always say : here was this morning.
"ek hi thappad" can be laughed over, enjoyed over at home. Not here. He is a leader. With leadership comes certain responsibilities because people are following and cheering every movement. A leader doesn't have the privilege that his followers are. Hardly bothering to condemn we can rave and rant, even over coffee. A leader cannot. He cannot even resent the absence of privilege because he chose to be the leader himself.

The followers of Anna Hazare were not only sincere, they bothered about propriety, not letting things happen which we ourselves condemn, when cadres of various political parties fight, break the law, burning buses, pelting stones, arson. We hate them all the more because the party leaders will argue first about how reactionery outbursts, and owning up in front of citizens.

Anna can. He shouldn't. He will lose myriads of supporters if he speaks in this language, something which middle class Indians are sensitive about.
Sent from my BlackBerry®Smartphone ------------------------------------------------------
Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, MBBS
Consultant Physician,
Mumbai, India. ------------------------------------------------------
"It is important to just listen for a while instead of speaking." -- My teacher ------------------------------------------------------

LETTERS TO MY DAUGHTER - Discovering Art

------ "You might ask me what ART is."

(She tiptoed for sometime, then found out that it's a better option to let each of her entire foot carry her weight way. That way she found it easier to sway and twirl in rhythm to the beats she seemed to be listening to keenly. She was completely oblivious of what lay outside the little bridge where her feet follow in rhythm, to beats coming out of nowhere.

Today as she turned 2 years 6 months 10 days, did she try to dance? I don't know.

As I watched my daughter finding rhythm even in a blast of beats, I remembered that just the other day I'd found her discovering melody in a barrage of noisy notes that blasted out from those ever-enthusiastic amplifiers, ready to jump the gun on any festive day.)

-----"Now that you read these words, I ask you : Do you love to dance? Do you feel the Freedom in Dance? Do you hum tunes still? You used to, you know..You were discovering the Feeling when Art reaches out to touch.
You might ask me what ART is. I am not an Artist, neither have I studied Arts!"

Though Formal Art is not my cup of cold coffee -- I haven't pursued Art as a subject of vocation -- I am fond of Art just like any other person, I love to savour Art in certain specific forms out the infinite forms Art manifests itself (graciously saving a few finite forms for human senses).

Incidentally the art-forms manifested, that captured my heart to rule my senses when I was a child, old enough to 'Feel Gratified'
are the ones that still pamper me with the most and the best and the deepest of pleasures.

Gratification led to Greed. And Greed led to want of Time.
The Want that would leave me pining for the moment, for "the next". I simply waited greedily wanting Time to pass by quicker. Yet it was Time that I realized the Infinity of Art... well, it was rather a juvenile concept that made me believe, than "realization".
Time led to Realization.

I am still on my way, egged on by Realization (Surprisingly Knowledge turned out to be the worst guide. At times it needed guidance, and Realization provided that )
I know that Realization would be there forever, just like Art manifest for a 3 year old me pleases me still.
Realization would lead to Grace. Finally.

I guess it is the quality of the interface, where Art and its Lover meet to give and take, that matters, and makes up the most of the reason why the forms of Art that a child is exposed to, remain (or should remain if allowed to thrive in natural ways) remain as pleasant to the senses as ever.

The most effective interface is the child's Mind -- kept un-corrupted, unblemished from the dirt and stain of the adult world ; a heart that knows no tricks, no hidden corners, no dark depths. Art gives its Heart. The child promises Truth.

Gifts, generously given and promised to be sheltered under Truth, never withers away, as Nature Creates on, The Artist behind all things beautiful and timeless.

Gratification led to Greed.
Greed led to want of Time.
Time led to Realization.
Realization would lead to Grace some day.
Grace would make me believe.

I don't know what Art is. But I do believe this
: Art is Truth manifested and Time immortalized.

Go out and find your Belief. I might not be there with you now as you read on, but I'm there around you, in these words will be there with you forever.

Be good to people. Be good to life.. But never "too good" so as not to speak out your heart and mind, if you Believe : no matter who-what-where-how ever.

That is one Freedom everybody has as a Nature's child, which not even Nature can take away from you. Remember, you are a Free soul. Believe in your Freedom.
Sent from my BlackBerry®Smartphone ------------------------------------------------------
Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, MBBS
Consultant Physician,
Mumbai, India. ------------------------------------------------------
"It is important to just listen for a while instead of speaking." -- My teacher ------------------------------------------------------

LETTERS TO MY DAUGHTER : Discovering Art

---- "You might ask me what ART is."

She tiptoed for sometime, then found out that it's a better option to let each of her entire foot carry her weight way. That way she found it easier to sway and twirl in rhythm to the beats she seemed to be listening to keenly. She was completely oblivious of what lay outside the little bridge where her feet follow in rhythm, to beats coming out of nowhere.

Today as she turned 2 years 6 months 10 days, did she try to dance? I don't know.

As I watched my daughter finding rhythm even in a blast of beats, I remembered that just the other day I'd found her discovering melody in a barrage of noisy notes that blasted out from those ever-enthusiastic amplifiers, ready to jump the gun on any festive day.

-----"Now that you read these words, I ask you : Do you love to dance? Do you feel the Freedom in Dance? Do you hum tunes still? You used to, you know..You were discovering the Feeling when Art reaches out to touch.
You might ask me what ART is. I am not an Artist, neither have I studied Arts!"

Though Formal Art is not my cup of cold coffee -- I haven't pursued Art as a subject of vocation -- I am fond of Art just like any other person, I love to savour Art in certain specific forms out the infinite forms Art manifests itself (graciously saving a few finite forms for human senses).

Incidentally the art-forms manifested, that captured my heart to rule my senses when I was a child, old enough to 'Feel Gratified' are the ones that still pamper me with the most and the best and the deepest of pleasures.

Gratification led to Greed. And Greed led to want of Time.
The Want that would leave me pining for the moment, for "the next". I simply waited greedily wanting Time to pass by quicker. Yet it was Time that I realized the Infinity of Art... well, it was rather a juvenile concept that made me believe, than "realization".
Time led to Realization.

I am still on my way, edged on by Realization
(Surprisingly Knowledge turned out to be the worst guide. At times it needed guidance, and Realization provided that )
I know that Realization would be there forever, just like Art manifest for a 3 year old me pleases me still.
Realization would lead to Grace. Finally.

I guess it is the quality of the interface, where Art and its Lover meet to give and take, that matters, and makes up the most of the reason why the forms of Art that a child is exposed to, remain (or should remain if allowed to thrive in natural ways) remain as pleasant to the senses as ever.

The most effective interface is the child's Mind -- kept un-corrupted, unblemished from the dirt and stain of the adult world ; a heart that knows no tricks, no hidden corners, no dark depths. Art gives its Heart. The child promises Truth.

Gifts, generously given and promised to be sheltered under Truth, never withers away, as Nature Creates on, The Artist behind all things beautiful and timeless.

Gratification led to Greed.

Greed led to want of Time.

Time led to Realization.

Realization would lead to Grace. Some day.

Grace would make me believe.

I don't know what Art is. But I do believe this
: Art is Truth manifested and Time immortalized.
Go out and find your Belief. I might not there, but these words will be there with you forever.
Sent from my BlackBerry®Smartphone ------------------------------------------------------
Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, MBBS
Consultant Physician,
Mumbai, India. ------------------------------------------------------
"It is important to just listen for a while instead of speaking." -- My teacher ------------------------------------------------------

PATIENTLY PLAYING CRICKET

17/10/2011 : 11:40 pm

* "Much ado about" : THE Ongoing One-Day international cricket match series in India, between England & India.
* Series status : India 2 : England 0
• 1st ODI : Margin of defeat > 100+ runs
• 2nd.ODI : Margin of defeat > 8 wickets

* Personal Commentary :

"Now, whatever happened to the Brits? Where are the champion warriors that mauled an exhausted, injured, depleted to effectively an India - B side to a 4-0 white-washed subjugation in Hyde Park?"

A starting sentence like this aimed at the English side or rather the cricket they play on field, (which is actually a rub-it-in query, soaked in sarcasm, dripping wet in caustic vengeance), should demote me from a cricket-lover to a blind, loud, aggressive, illogical fanatic. Fanatics hardly bother about promotions & demotions of their support-profile status. And history does give me a fair right to do so if I remember what was being written in the sports pages of Indian newspapers and British tabloids when the 4-0 mauling was being white-washed.

As an Indian cricket - lover who supports his national team, I'm here for some boisterous celebration of India's victories and not to sledge England on every defeat. I acknowledge their goods and appreciating their cricket with due respect.

But I should gun for the 'Connoisseur Coterie' -- the cynics who wrote off the world champions as an overhyped, spoilt, unprofessional, cash-hungry, over-paid bunch of players who needed a good spanking, particularly writing off "Brand Dhoni" to an eternal exile in oblivion? This bunch of cricket appreciative analysts should be spanked and debarred from public expression. Perhaps cash payments for appearing in the A-V media should be stopped.

Denouncing T-20 cricket as the guide to Armageddon of Indian Cricket at the drop of a hat or a poor performance of a player is their forte. Going for the throats of national players who play in IPL is their philosophy. They are ever-ready to demean lavishly every act of glory Team India has performed. They see cheating and swept-under-the-carpet conspiracies everywhere which supposedly provide millions of ill-gotten cash to defaulted cricketers. They readily diagnose out-of-form cricketers as money making betrayers, villains who are here to get rich and not to play for the country.

It seems these pathetic paranoids have surrendered a Virtue to a lust for instant gratification, of the T-20 kind. The Virtue of Patience, an integral part of the king of games, or the game of kings. They want Persistent Instant Success. It stinks of a 'colonised Indian mentality'
which should have been extinct by now.

A note of advice for these Pundits with an eternal frown : Cricket is not baseball or American football. While I empathise with modern jet-speedos trying to catch up with the rushing hours of a day where Speed is the mantra, you should first learn about a word called RESPECT before proceeding to comment on 3rd millenium cricket & cricketers.
Precisely speaking, : SHUT UP. FOR GOOD.

Sent from my BlackBerry®Smartphone ------------------------------------------------------
Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, MBBS
Consultant Physician,
Mumbai, India. ------------------------------------------------------
"It is important to just listen for a while instead of speaking." -- My teacher ------------------------------------------------------

ME, SHE, AND MY FRIEND

This year in the midst of all the pre , intra and post - Puja , greetings, pleasantries, I reconnected hiatus of 10 years, with a friend - a medico who was my colleague when I was working - my first "job in the private sector" (1994 : Kothari Medical Centre, Alipore, Kolkata). I was especially pleased to see that the son of a gun had posted all the way up from Queensland.

He was one of the most vicious animate objects to engage in any conversation with. An inborn armoury of the blackest humour that supplemented a tongue that turned increasingly caustic over the years, built for me, a repertoire of sharp one-liners, each new and fresh, that could jab and stun, more than an Ali or a Tyson.

Anyway ...

He had written in our regional language, in his own inimitable way. The First sentence was not a statement. It was a Question. It, if translated in the Queen's Language, crystallizes to : " ANI, HOW'S SHE?" (the rest of the words, mere reinforcements to the query don't need translation. And shouldn't, too. Ethics.
The first question is this! Yet I wasn't surprised or shocked at all.

There was a time when She was in both of our lives, simultaneously.. She, at that age, had captured a fancy for both of us. And Boy! Did she seduce us! She played second fiddle at times, and dominated at times. We just gave in to HER. Soon She 'Had' us.
She bedded us both, giving us our First 'Taste'.
She did it endlessly, almost like a Maniac, like a 'she-dog', with an Obsessive Passion -- which neither I nor my friend could override even once.

Both of us were frank about our privacy, talking about HER Promiscuity, and Jealousy or Masculine pride never intervened. In fact, we did empathise handsomely, while sharing our Amorous episodes. How She would get us 'Up and High' like never before, only to get us slumping and dropping dead, exhausted completely.
Her Passion simply overpowered us, and none of us had the masculinity to 'subjugate' her, to a slave, whom we would have in our way, the way the Primordial Primal Primates -- our forefathers --- would have done eons back.
So after all these years, as my old friend asked 'how is SHE', I smiled wryly. I wondered how passionately deep she'd controlled us that he remembered her so as to ask about Her, ahead of all other questions which we both wanted to know, about how things have been since.

I remember a casino waiter asking : "Shaken or Stirred?" to which Daniel Craig muttered coldly,
"Do I look like I care a damn?"

No wonder.

I wrote back, " LIFE IS STILL A BITCH..."

** Note: the title of this note is the English translation of a Bengali movie. I did it myself, and have not checked about 'Copyright Issues'.
The fertility of my brain (a paradoxical self-contradicting pseudo-reality) told me that it fits. Anyway I never put a befitting trust on it.. (I never trusted the oft-loathed jelloid!)

Sent from my BlackBerry®Smartphone ------------------------------------------------------
Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, MBBS
Consultant Physician,
Mumbai, India. ------------------------------------------------------
"It is important to just listen for a while instead of speaking." -- My teacher ------------------------------------------------------

BOTANY 2.0 3/25

A few days back here in Facebook, one of those brick-head conversation was on .. One of those typical out-of-the-blue irrelevant ones that I start off here, compelling my indulgent friends to add comments however bizarre the topic and my starting observations might be.

Anyway, in some convoluted way, at one stage I revealed this statement about none too glorious episodes when I was in school in the 11th. Standard : "In one of the class tests in class 11, I had got 3 (THREE) out of 25 [ 3/25 ] in Botany." Seriously! I did get 3 out of 25..

I'd been thinking about 'Botany' since then, someting like Botany 2.0 . And I came to this conclusion :
I think my Maternal Grandmother, my beloved cute DIDA, was a good 'botanist' of her times... The seeming eccentricity in the statement (as always, nothing new huh!) requires a bit of "detailing" (even by my standards.. Ahem..).

In the early and mid 70s, middle-class life in f Calcutta were in an oscillating mode : Most of the times dull, insensitive and Unfair. And at times, brightly understanding, benevolent and Giving with a Big Heart.

Whenever it oscillated across two smiling points, tender and favourable, Life would gift to me Prized Occasions, weekend nights that would ensure that I would sleep at night beside her. The location would remain the same -- It was a dreamy, beautiful, awfully constructed 2-storey eye-sore of a dwelling, my Palace of Wonders.

It had moist, algae infested walls with a nauseating dampness, the smell of which still remains the most common theme of my aromatic deja vus.

The steps were painfully high for me which I climbed one step at a time. Every step exhibited, with a bit of Adult Stocism, nasty cracks (which told the adults : Time's up). It was an excited spirit of adventure that added to my royal self-pride every time I climbed them with its nasty cracks -- the beautiful rocky heights capped by a Gothic tower where a princess slept....I called it MAMABARI.
I still do.

Sleeping the nights there with DIDA meant, for me, that I could repeatedly press her, without adult interference (that seemed obsessed with Discipline) for her detailed personalised narration of ghost stories of rural Bengal. She would continue to narrate with that beautiful, quivering pitch of hers till she saw me off as I would board my (MY) Dreamland Express, which stopped at Station Dawn.

All her accounts included Trees. And She knew Special Trees like the back of her hands (which, by the way, belonged to a Culinary Genius). Special Trees hosted unpleasantly Special guests. Ghosts.
She knew exactly which tree hosted which 'ghost'. And there was a time when I had a rather formidable knowledge of some deep enlightened truth of Botany.

So no wonder Botany 2. 3/25 reflects my pristine innocence, not any ignorance. I am not ignorant. I can't help if my 'Brain' ignores me persistently..(And no! I'm not going to take any "First Steps" to warm up to that narcissistic self-obsessed jelloid.) Reminds me of a chair umpire -- At the beginning of war, he sits up there and declares just once : "LOVE ALL". Later, throughout the war when points, games and sets are conquered, quipping in with "Quiet please", nodding to "Fault"s and inferring : "DEUCE" between unequal warriors...

During that test, I explored an eight year old half-grown brain, trapped inside a botanically challenged 16 year old budding man, who, by the way, was taking extreme care that the answer sheet retained its pristine white (oh c'on you paranoid comedians! I did respect Botany!)

Botany, thus for me, means the knowledge of an uncorroborated fact that Special Trees hosts Ghosts.

प
Sent from my BlackBerry®Smartphone ------------------------------------------------------
Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, MBBS
Consultant Physician,
Mumbai, India. ------------------------------------------------------
"It is important to just listen for a while instead of speaking." -- My teacher ------------------------------------------------------

Macabre

Each of us naked and bare inside,
Vile an animal ready to kill,
Each of us rendered merciless,
Brains on leash by the reptilian complex
That hides behind Neo-cortical camouflage.

I breathe Pure, thrive yet conspire
To kill each day, the Mother's Hapless Child
That comes from the same womb as I,

One day shall see no green, no thing left,
but me in the arena to massacre,
The Mother shall witness Macabre Fratricide,
As I shall kill without Mercy the heartless,
With them Rose Hearts that loved once too.
Sent from my BlackBerry®Smartphone ------------------------------------------------------
Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, MBBS
Consultant Physician,
Mumbai, India. ------------------------------------------------------
"It is important to just listen for a while instead of speaking." -- My teacher ------------------------------------------------------

GRASS BLADES I TRANSPORT

Each of us naked and bare inside,
Vile an animal ready to kill,
Each of us rendered merciless,
Brains on leash by the reptilian complex
That hides behind Neo-cortical camouflage.

I breathe Pure, thrive yet conspire
To kill each day, the Mother's Hapless Child
That comes from the same womb as I,

One day shall see no green, no thing left,
but me in the arena to massacre,
The Mother shall witness Macabre Fratricide,
As I shall kill without Mercy the heartless,
With them Rose Hearts that loved once too.
Sent from my BlackBerry®Smartphone ------------------------------------------------------
Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, MBBS
Consultant Physician,
Mumbai, India. ------------------------------------------------------
"It is important to just listen for a while instead of speaking." -- My teacher ------------------------------------------------------

URBANE CHAT

The other day a good friend of mine was discussing virtues and vices of man in contemporary times, a discussion loosely philosophical by urban standards. Nothing serious at all if one doesn't put philosophy and seriousness in the same bracket. In fact I would be repelled by the type which doesn't exactly need the stoicism with which luminous intellectuals offer viewpoints, with self-contradictions so polarised that the average brain gets shocked to silence.. And the seriousness persists...

Unfortunately a friend of my friend appeared from nowhere. Actual it was mere coincidence (that which happens coincidentally), but this frail figure, luminous definitely as I could see a faint halo behind his head in the roadside-discourse that followed. Hearing the word "Virtuosity" (I don't remember which one of us uttered the word), but he started on a monologue :

"The stage of evolution that human consciousness has reached with a lot of philosophical fanfare, has witnessed, in the last 97 years, two well-planned, well-conspired, well-cheered episodes of the most cruelly nauseating mass genocide our lot has ever concocted. Each of them have been 4-5 years long , each of them having been injected with a lot of patriotic fervour by cheerleading women, the elderly and children (no matter how much they might have been influenced by subconscious acts of transglobal "mass suggestion") to serve "political purposes"..

At this point I had the urge to cut him through, but the suspectedly seeming veteran of many a dialogue was too quick for me, and continued :

"On that note, As I curse to myself often, "warring means to serve politicking ends" by an animal species capable of performing the most dangerous act of predation driven by physiological reflexes other than hunger and preservation of species& self-sustainence, in battle-fields or private bedrooms... We have long abandoned Virtuosity in our journey forward...."

I dropped dead..
Sent from my BlackBerry®Smartphone ------------------------------------------------------
Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, MBBS
Consultant Physician,
Mumbai, India. ------------------------------------------------------
"It is important to just listen for a while instead of speaking." -- My teacher ------------------------------------------------------

THE BLADE OF GRASS I TRAMPLED

Each of us naked and bare inside,
Vile an animal ready to kill,
Each of us rendered merciless,
Brains on leash by the reptilian complex
That hides behind Neo-cortical camouflage.

I breathe Pure, thrive yet conspire
To kill each day, the Mother's Hapless Child
That comes from the same womb as I,

One day shall see no green, no thing left,
but me in the arena to massacre,
The Mother shall witness Macabre Fratricide,
As I shall kill without Mercy the heartless,
With them Rose Hearts that loved once too..
Sent from my BlackBerry®Smartphone ------------------------------------------------------
Dr.Anirban Chaudhuri, MBBS
Consultant Physician,
Mumbai, India. ------------------------------------------------------
"It is important to just listen for a while instead of speaking." -- My teacher ------------------------------------------------------

PURSUING TAGORE

"I've been passing my time,
Every hour of it since Dawn,
I've Yearned to hear the notes Of Thy Melody
That Thou Created At the beginning of Time,

It is Dusk now;
And I still find myself in complete awe,
My mortal soul trying to harmonise
With the Celestial Notes of Thy Primordial Music
that resonate In all things Divine by Thy Creation...."

--
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