Put plenty of heart into it ...by giving love away

Picture Credit : unsplash.com

I have never really comprehended what an " IDEAL "  relationship is all about ?

This heartfelt note from Timber Hawkeye , Buddhist Bootcamp perhaps summarises how I want most of my relationships....specially the close ones 

“Relationships are often misunderstood to be a simple commitment between two people; 

a dedication to each other with a sense of belonging to one another. 

That kind of limited perspective breeds expectations, possessiveness and disappointment, and it reeks of ownership, greed, ignorance, and selfish desire.

A healthy relationship is an agreement between two people to support one another in their spiritual practice. It is a vow to encourage each other’s dedication, devotion and path, free from attachment or expectations (yet full of caring and compassion). 

A healthy relationship is based on unconditional love, not on the need to possess. 

Although you put plenty of “heart” into it, you lose nothing by giving love away.

If each person is equally dedicated to inspire, create, awaken, and enrich the lives of others, then there is no hidden agenda. 

It is far less important what one receives from the other than what one can give.

Intimacy would suddenly surpass warmth and tenderness to also include patience, vulnerability, honesty, active listening, understanding, connection, and unwavering trust.

There is a healing power inherent in this kind of union, and it is capable of enabling deep transformation for both people. It is an incredible opportunity[…]”

Excerpt From: Hawkeye, Timber. “Buddhist Boot Camp.”

I live my daydreams in music....

"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. 

I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. 

I see my life in terms of music.”
~Albert Einstein~

Ever since I can remember,
music has been an integral part of my life...

The whisper of crickets in the leechi trees in Dehradun

The loud drone of fighter planes in Basra

The koooo-koooo chook-chook of train from Mumbai to Benares in the summer holidays

The incomprehensible yet loving loris of Daddaji in chaste punjabi

The gurgling sound of Ganga at Laxman Jhoola and the swish of the paddle boats

And Lata Mangeshkar- Kishore Kumar duets on Radio Ceylon

I was a dreamy child and sought music wherever I was!

Sawant dadaji in Theosophical society, Benares, astutely channelised my love for singing
and introduced me to Gayatri Mantra and Hanuman chalisa at a very early age
Getting up at 4.30 am to hear the vedic chants reverberating in each and every cell of my body,
was the highlight of my summer holidays.
I can almost hear them even today

Bandra East, Mumbai was where I was introduced to the wonder of playlists
Those TDK cassettes zealously purchased from the duty-free shops,
Our old antique-looking German tape-recorder
And my brother and I painstakingly writing the name of the each song neatly
with our black Schaefer ink pen...

Chitrahaar, Movies and Antakshari made me the original acapella  specialist, even before the background sounds were in vogue!

Though I did not know it then,
learning Hindustani Classical at that age, was a gift given by my parents to me at that tender age!
I ofcourse, resisted the alaaps and the bhaavgeets that time, as I could hear my friends enjoying their evening play when I was practicing the aaroh- avroh ...
and struggling with passing Music exams
while my spirit was dying to participate in the unstructured play in the colony playground!

My love for gaana continued in my dating days with Uday
where his Meri bheegi bheegi  matched my Beeti na beetaayi raina 
and our romance blossomed over our eclectic choice of music:
his old Kishore Kumar numbers to my Disco Station...how we laughed at the differences...and yet the deeper almost divine bonding

and Soumya was born in a very musically alive home!

Cooing rehashed and remixed versions of nursery rhymes to put her to sleep
Converting the cups of water to jaltarang
It was hardly a surprise that my toddler was soon swaying to songs,
making playlists and swooning over Jonas brothers and Miley Cyrus!

The first playlist she made for me was the sweetest gift anyone had ever, ( and since ) given me,
each number meticulously woven in the necklace of a pretty playlist which Mom could wear and listen to anywhere, anytime....specially when she missed her moppet!

Her tradition of this gifting of love and connection still continues for me in my life ....

I make playlists whenever I want to gift a part of me to someone
and my love affair with Music continues unabashedly, unabated !

Every song with a rhythm , a heartbeat and woven with the richness of life or the ordinariness of it :)

Happy
Sad
Slow
Classical
Old
New
Rock
Jazzy
Dhinchak
English
Hindi
Regional
Global
through the ups and downs of life
bringing me closer to emotions and feelings : the aliveness of life...the joie de vivre of existence

When I look back at almost five decades of my musical moments, 
they encompass it all - 

the voice, the breath, the melody 

and the silence between the notes

the said 

and the unsaid 

I am blessed to have lived and hope to continue living in this cauldron of notes...till eternity !

Check my playlists in this youtube channel

My Playlists

Do not leave your room

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash


"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet"

—Franz Kafka

Akele hain to kya gum hai

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.

meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

— Jellaludin Rumi,

translation by Coleman Barks

Loneliness and I had kept a distance from each other....

Till she decided to visit me four years back!

I have been your quintessential extrovert, till then :

Surrounding myself with
hazaar action
peppy social do's
constant social media noise
mindless shopping
general chatter and cacophony of life....all in good doses!

When Loneliness decided to make friends with me,
it threw me off guard .....to say the least.

I was stand-offish and judgemental, in the beginning :

" I AM NOT 'THAT' SORT OF PERSON!"

The more I resisted the cloud,
more it cloaked me in feelings of isolation, despondency and unworthiness....

Finally I relented and stopped fighting her

"Come, have some chai with me !"

Some early mornings and late evenings,
I  began inviting my Loneliness to sit across on the chatai...
minus the distraction of my smartphone or netflix...
nudging her to open up her heart to me.

Initially she was reticent and she camouflaged herself in the cloak of sadness....
but slowly she relented and began opening up - and HOW !

Her devotedness to make me learn and grow as a human being, surprised me.

I discovered parts of me which I had not seen before-

Beneath the veneer of fear of being alone
was a very strong courageous human
who was committed to give herself and contributing to the life fully....

The seemingly flippant and frivolous chatter-box
hid a heart longing to connect deeper with people and with life...

the restless actions had hidden that part of me, which actually revelled in stillness.

Loneliness may have been an uninvited guest , but she has become a wonderful dost  and guide !

Rambunctious & reflective inconsistencies

"If one wants really to live life in all its richness, one has to learn how to be inconsistent, how to be consistently inconsistent, how to be able to move from one extreme to another — sometimes rooted deep in the earth and sometimes flying high in heaven, sometimes making love and sometimes meditating.

And then, slowly slowly, your heaven and your earth will come closer and closer, 
and you will become the horizon where they meet." Osho

down in the dumps of loneliness or
high on the ebullience of connections

focussed on the goals for the quarter or
scattered and chaotically ambling along

quietly reflective in solitude or
rambunctiously dancing on Bollywood numbers....

time to make peace with inconsistencies as a norm,
rather than an exception.....
in life

Afterall, there is no consistent destination to go towards, but this moment!

The nest is empty......but does my life have to be so ?

Soumya's going away  to the University was tough....
rather I made Soumya's leaving for the University tough for myself!

Initially I would spend time in her room
to feel her presence and to fill the void,
reminiscing over the times we spent together...
brooding over the emptiness I felt in her absence.

I tried
retail therapy
mindless chatter on whatsapp

just something
to fill the hours which
seemed
to stretch on and on

Over the weeks, months and years 
I realised how much I had used my daughter as a surrogate, 
to define and live my short term goals and long term dreams!

No one asked me to do so,
it just felt easy :

in the Comfort Zone ...
playing the Mommy !

being worried about the grades, courses to take in the university, emotional highs and lows in school and the junk food intake of a growing teenager....

rather than looking at deeper, maybe more real questions of life, for myself :

How do I add more meaning to my life and to those of others around me?

What work/role brings joy to me 
and more importantly , what am I doing to pursue it?

Slowly it has begun dawning on me that
loneliness and restlessness inside of me are
nothing
but

a Reality Check to connect to

Who I really am :

Beyond
a friend
a daughter
a team player
a lover
a wife
and a mother.....

Some use travel, others mindless chatter, food, templatized fun life....
to deflect from visiting this space of inquiry of truly who they are , sans all the roles and titles

I have used my motherhood!

The nest may be empty today...
but life is still full of all the meaning that I can choose to create in it now!

Noticing what surprises and disturbs me.....

"Noticing what surprises and disturbs me has been a very useful way to see invisible beliefs. If what you say surprises me, I must have been assuming something else was true. If what you say disturbs me, I must believe something contrary to you. My shock at your position exposes my own position. 

When I hear myself saying, “How could anyone believe something like that?” a light comes on for me to see my own beliefs. 

These moments are great gifts. 

If I can see my beliefs and assumptions, I can decide whether I still value them.

I hope you’ll begin a conversation, listening for what’s new. 
Listen as best you can for what’s different, for what surprises you. 

See if this practice helps you learn something new..." 

~Margaret Wheatley~

Famous : Just being myself

Almost nearing the golden jubilee of existence....
still wonder sometimes at what does
being Famous or
being Successful mean....

These words by Naomi Shihab Nye resound in my heart with their authenticity.

Famous 

"The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,

which knew it would inherit the earth

before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds

watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom

is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,

more famous than the dress shoe,

which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men

who smile while crossing streets,

sticky children in grocery lines,

famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,

but because it never forgot what it could do."

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,

but because it never forgot what it could do.

Home is the place where you stand...

'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;

A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,

Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.

Home! Home! sweet, sweet Home!

There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home!

~ John Howard Payne~

I  have been a nomad for atleast half my life.

My father was in a transferable job and we kept moving from one place to the other ...- Delhi, Dehradun, Mumbai, Basra.

Every city had a charm of its own, 

yet

Every move brought out its challenges and adventures... 

It made me approach strangers and new situations unhesitatingly, make friends at the drop of a hat and adjust to new environment through different schools and social circles, grudgingly, but with a naive acceptance!

Then my parents settled down in North India, 
the place which felt closest to home for them, 
and that became home for me it too....
till I got married!
My nomadic journey and the search for " my HOME" restarted !

From the one room terrace flat as newly weds in Seshadripuram, Bengaluru....

to a 1BHK ( a one bedroom hall kitchen) in Bandra, Mumbai to the bigger residential ancestral home of my husband, where we stay at present....
Every home has been an active witness to my life's journey....

"What is home for me, today ?"

A haven of my own....safe from the eyes of the world? 
A place where I can unwind, be myself ?
Nurture family and create community of friends who fight and love and grow together ...
Dream dreams : big and small...
Clutch a pillow and cry my heart out at night when things don't work out!!


It's so difficult to pin down what EXACTLY home means to me...

It's all of the above, perhaps...An extension of me and more!

Pico Iyer's words come closest to what I feel about home : 

Home is a place where you become yourself, a place where you stand!


"Where you come from now is much less important than where you're going. 
More and more of us are rooted in the future or the present tense as much as in the past. 
And home, we know, is not just the place where you happen to be born. 
It's the place where you become yourself. 

And home, in the end, is of course not just the place where you sleep. 

It's the place where you stand!"

~ Pico Iyer~