Movement and Change

We have finally moved into our new house. It still has a long way to go to become a home. And i wonder if it ever will.

It is amazing (and tiring)  , this constancy of change in my life.

All these words that are ready to be written some day , when i have some respite, some quietude, just never seems to happen. I move from one disruptive change to another, in professional and personal space. And every time i feel normalcy would return i am shaken yet again.

I haven't minded it so much i the past. One would think, almost welcomed it. But now, i'm getting tired and would love for things to settle down a bit. Being tired seems to have become my life sentence recently. I wonder if i should go to the doctor. Just in case it isn't just mental tiredness.

In change, one of the things you do while adjusting to change is introspect and observe. You understand a bit f the change and also the context of change. How change impacts people and how people (as well as spaces) respond and adjust to change. If you looked objectively, one of the things that happens, beyond the physical space being changed is the rise of a new order, a new regime almost. As usual , i struggle with the questions that keep coming up. One of the standard ones that i hear in my head are related to power.  Having studied and worked on issues of power and violence for a long time now, it is strange to see if played out, almost in slow motion, every day. It is fascinating and revolting at the same time. The very things people in power say they want to change and how they gain power and become corrupt centers of power would be funny, if it wasn't so shameful.

I had written about this earlier. But repeating them again in this context. When violence and violation is done by mistake it has scope to be corrected, to be changed, But when it is done , with complete understanding , by people who have intelligence and power- it is a corruption of a kind that cannot be easily changed, or forgiven. The repercussions are also huge and consequences have to be borne by both the innocent and the culprits.

I know, i speak in abstracts here. the point being, it's happening in the US, in India, in governments, non-governments as well as little home spaces. It is happening in religions, in politics, in communities and families.

At the end of the day, every thing is about power, or lack of power. And hence why everything is political. And personal.

More of this later. The cartons need to be unpacked. A new order needs to be created. Some normalcy needs to be restored. All the while with Caesar barking away. Sigh.

The burden of my own words

This year, i decided to break my own tradition of writing an year end post and making a wish list for next year. For one, it seems to be the same routine every year and then, i just couldn't make myself write anything. In the past few years, i have stopped writing regularly and i am having to push myself to abide by my own ghost in the past to keep writing, to not allow my words to dry out. But if your heart isn't in it, the brain can only churn out words that have limited meaning and no feel.Strange mood to be in a new year. 

The good thing was being home.


There is something about home. 
about being with family. 

about snuggling your feet together under one blanket 
and talking about random things, 
there's something about Päpä's hyperactivity 
to ensure we get a hundred star treatment always, 
there's something about being stuffed till your head 
and still make space for what mom makes for you, 

there's something about waking up whenever you want to 
and going off to sleep mid sentence 
and then waking up to see multiple snoozing heads around, 

there is something about seeing little ones grow young 
and the old ones older,
there is something about hearing old fights melt away in the kitchen 
and smiling silently in happiness,

there's something about being carefree,
something about getting your hair oiled 
and back scrubbed in the winter sun, 


there's something about visiting your old hangouts, 
accidentally meeting people on the road 
and counting their age lines and wrinkles in the happiest smiles, 
there's something about losing some old landmarks, 
there's something about seeing new ones come up, 


there's something about reminiscing about the past, 
there's something about reliving your life.. 
there's something about home..

Goodbyes

i do not like goodbyes. But it doesn't matter, does it?

Sometimes i fly away to the skies while i am still half asleep, still dreaming and look at me. From that distance i can see my life. i have moved ever since i remember, from place to place , from house to house.i have nightmares of moving sometimes. of missing my bus, my train, my flight. of being on the wrong bus, of leaving someone special behind.  it's not something i have control over. i'm like a clueless little rootless plant , tossed around from place to place by the river of life. sometimes i like to think that i am the river. when i meet other plants on the way, we tag along for a while and i tell them i am the river. i don't know otherwise. when the river was young, so was i. i was fast and furious like the river itself. When i spoke of river i spoke of myself. At that point i was moving, looking, exploring , looking, touching, looking, moving, looking. looking for the direction, for a purpose, becoming stronger, becoming weak, fighting odds, making friends, losing friends, moving, looking. finding purpose.

the river had its phases, when it slowed down, when it became fast, when it reached the end of the road and suddenly found another way. sometimes it made its own way. i went along the river. i didn't have any choice. i moved with her, fastening my pace, slowing my pace. saying goodbyes, moving, moving. never stopping.

sometimes i made a corner my home. i held on to it with my feeble little arms that i thought were roots. sometimes i wanted to stop. Foolish me, i didn't know i was a rootless plant. i held on but movement had become me you see. i couldn't stay on. someone told me i could borrow its roots, i could stay. i still hated goodbyes, but i had fallen in love with the river. the river that moved. my love was stronger than my hatred. and so i moved. yet again, with the river of life.

It is strange when your nightmare and dream are the same. i have lost count of the places, of the faces, of friends, of lives lived , of pains, of dreams, of laughter , of tears. i sometimes wonder if it is me, my life i am looking at from the sky. then the alarm goes off and i have to wake up and get ready . ready for movement, ready to say the goodbyes yet again. no point , no time to wait and wonder. but move with -move in the river of life.