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.

A ritual more than anything else.

so another year another year has passed me by. i realize i have become older, calm on the outside, patient and mature as well some say.

but there is a storm brewing inside. a tsunami maybe, by storm standards. it is churning the past few years in a fast pace and is at that point of puking it all out. And do not be fooled by false demeanors. beneath the calm and patient mask, there lurks a highly cynical and sarcastic impatient being that is smirking at everything, including my own responses. if you could tear off the mask, you would see an 'eyebrow-raised-smirk' face that doesn't give a dime to anyone or anything.

i believe we live in cycles. not concentric, more like a venn..some circles overlap with your past cycles, some more than other and some very detached. i also feel that we live in the current cycle more than the others- like if you color coded them- the past would be a lovely lavender, but hazy. the present a bright indigo and the future a soft haze of some color unknown. strangely, either ways you look, towards the past or the future, it's through a purple haze. i digress. the current cycle. yes, it takes over everything else, the bright indigo, making you feel this is life, today is living. not that cycles are bound by years or times, they have their own lives.but year ends somehow are the times you sit down for a short breath before you start on the next leg. circles- when you look at your life in hindsight, it so many different sized circles of lavender, or so many different shades. sitting in your indigo circle that overpowers everything in present you wonder if all those circles are yours, if all those lives are yours.

i also wonder sometimes, if someday i come to a crossroad and suddenly meet myself from years before- would i recognize her? would she recognize me? i know one thing though. if i met her some day i would hold her and cry to my heart's fill. just hold her tight and cry, cry till the warning goes off of another flood.

there i digress again. the year gone by. what have i achieved? what have i learnt? feels a bit empty the last year.usually i stock them up pretty tight. this year, it looks like a house of zen- minimalist. but it does not give me peace. It makes me feel empty. i feel empty of feelings, of doing anything meaningful for myself. i have pretty much lived my life on my own terms. but this year i feel like a zombie that went through the chores without even being a part of anything. i did not write a lot, i did not read many books, i did not watch that many movies, i did not travel that much, i did not do anything that makes me feel good. strangely, even the music was random strains of past songs that i couldn't carry the tune of. quite an empty year. even as i try to carry out this annual ritual , hoping that my mojo in writing will get back, i feel the churning , where words make no sense and bang into each other, creating a cacaphony making me nauseous..

the year will end. the cycle will end too. I hope this feeling of emptiness moves to that of calm.

Tamaso Ma Sad Gamaya. lead me to light from darkness.