ChirpyQuill

The weather is finally opening up so I have been (unsuccessfully) trying to get into an outdoor running routine of some sort. On one such recent run, I was unexpectedly helped by the kindness of two strangers - one of them actually unknowingly. More on that later - some background first.   Over the past twenty five years, my relationship with my weight has been rocky at best. The quest to have a flat(ish) tummy has been a never ending struggle and a combination of factors (genetic disposition, laziness, over indulgence in food and drink) has presented seemingly insurmountable hurdles. This love-hate dynamic has naturally been extended to the one form of exercise that seems to do me some good: running.  It all started when I showed up as an overweight kid on admission day at Marine Engineering and Research Institute in Kolkata. Like most of my peers, I had dutifully followed the herd and spent an inordinate amount of time preparing to ace one of the toughest entrance exams in t...

Life is a satire on life itself it laughs and mocks our ignoramus ways gives chock full of rules, then changes the game and belly laughs the whole way away it bookends us, with incontinence meanwhile lets our arrogance have it’s day leads us by nose to want everything in sight then quietly tucks it all away gives us health and youth and a swagger to boot and just when we feel, we hold sway slips in old age, disease and death hysterically laughing all the way away Oh I got you bitch, says the man who is rich until fortunes turn and he lies in a ditch at his curious expression, life gives a nice aww! and belly laughs the whole way away when we are done teaching our parents to do it right life gives us children to enjoy our plight it gets us to make plans for years on out in very next hour tackles us to the ground it makes us seek love for years on end then burns us with heartaches that will not mend gives us fists to hold everything tight but the tighter we hold the less there is to find...

For the longest time I have held this notion that life visits us in moments, in tiny specks of time, laid out sequentially, as is evident from the passing seconds and minutes on our digital watches, or the tick tick clicking away and moving of the second and minute hands on the wall clock that validate that view. Perhaps it was not our view ever, it was a view trained into us on the sly by these instruments of convenience. It seemed like a fair one to have, up until    this afternoon when sitting in a middle school concert with young musicians playing on the stage a new view emerged. Upon dwelling, this new view seems closer to the truth, and even prettier than the earlier one. But you be the judge.  The alternate view is that life plays itself out in countless notes, all simultaneously playing out, creating the music of life, as we know it. Each note is distinct, some are shrill and others dulcet. Some are loud and others soft. But they are all, millions and millions of ...

A friend of mine penned a beautiful article under the same name that I have chosen for mine. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I agree.   Her thoughts though were more likely in the literal sense, regarding the beauty and variety of the desert landscape and the unique lifeforms it nurtures. The same can be said about the Tundra or the Rainforest or a child or better still a woman. But my drift here is about life itself. Bear with me on that for a bit.  We are busy living, as a desert is being a desert. We are preoccupied with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or with small and big joys that we get to experience. Some of these flow through our senses, onwards to wherever taste of food goes after it’s been tasted, or love and kindness go after they have been felt. Other joys, which are more surreal, like seeing the kids grow and succeed or even a plant blossom and throw out buds and flowers, are experienced more holistically by our being. ...

It had to be late at night. It was muscle memory to do it then. Armed with ginger chai, a silent cry for help heavenward (Baba help!), and “online” copies of the Thesaurus and Wren & Martin this time, I sat down to write my speech. Who was I going to fling my laptop at? I chuckled wryly.   It is the strangest question, “Who are you?”. Just when I thought I had been asked all conceivable outlandish questions thus far. “Who am I?” What kind of an audacious question is that?   I started writing, “I am a mother,” and then, quite inexplicably, I couldn’t think of anything else. Cups of chai, and an hour later, the one line I wrote on the screen blinked back at me, mockingly. I had to be more, didn’t I? I picked up a photo of my dad and me that is always perched on a ledge in my kitchen. In that old sepia-tinted photograph, he is holding a snake with its hood raised in one hand and a 6-month-old me in the other, looking entirely fascinated by him.  In every sense, that phot...

As a person of varied interests, this particular one has been a strong ally since I was first introduced to it by my father over 35 years ago, public speaking. After numerous competitive speaking engagements in high school and through college, I ostensibly hung up my proverbial mic in pursuit of other pastures. Arrows from my nascent stint as a public speaker proved immensely valuable in my quiver as I set out on my career right up until I was thrown into a role that required further honing those skills that had served me quite well until then. My father, or Baba as I called him, features heavily in this story, in all of them, really! He was this undeniable tour de force in my life. Tall, handsome, gregarious, and generous, inevitably commandeering every room he walked into. He spoke several languages fluently and had this insatiable appetite for books; he could quote Tolstoy with as much aplomb as he could recall entire excerpts from “Shriman Yogi” and “Swami.”   During one o...

It is harder to be still than to run and walk harder to be silent than to chatter and talk It is harder to to be here than to be someplace else harder to live in the now than in past and future worlds it is harder to taste a spoonful than to eat away a bowl harder to slow down some than to be always on the go it is harder to let go than to hold on to our fears harder to count our blessings than to lick our wounds and tears it’s hard to live a life  that’s aligned to our core hard to hold on to our convictions than letting them adrift and blown It’s harder to turn the gaze inwards than to see outside it’s hard to ask ourselves the questions that we have been asking others awhile it’s hard to reject the dogma that’s been handed down to us hard to change the ways we think in which we have been trained so well It’s hard to accept, it’s us not them that makes life better or worse it’s hard to not force our ways but align with the contours of the Universe it’s hard to stay invisible...

Decades after I first learned of them during a geography lesson at school, I had a chance to see the mighty saguaros in person in Arizona. There they stood, tall and undefeated, giving the literal “fuck you” to the world in that barren Sonoran Desert where nature had decreed not much would grow, let alone thrive and rule. The feeling of awe beggared description. This was my second visit to Arizona in as many years; this time, I went specifically to see my saguaros. I didn’t have my fill the first time; the desert was calling, and I needed to go. When a visitor goes to the Sonoran Desert in spring, one isn’t quite prepared to see the frenzy of life bursting out defiantly out of every crevice, every rock. It is almost as if everything capable of producing life wants to bloom wherever it is, utterly oblivious that it is splashing around this vibrancy of bright colors in an otherwise less-than-hospitable stark desert. They say in life, you always arrive where you need to be, not partic...

  ਇਸ਼ਕ ਦਾ ਬਾਨਾ   ( Cloak of Love)   ਤੰਨ ਤੇ ਪਾ ਕੇ ਬਾਨਾ ਇਸ਼ਕ ਦਾ, ਦਿਲ ਹੋਇਆ ਜੋਗੀ ਮੇਰਾ , ਸਜਦੇ ਕੀਤੇ ਤੈਨੂੰ   ਖ਼ੁਦਾ ਮੰਨ ਕੇ ਤੇ ਮੇਰਾ ਕਾਬਾ ਹੋਇਆ ਦਰ ਤੇਰਾ. My heart became a hermit after wearing the cloak of love, I made you my God, prayed to you and your home became my mosque/temple.   ਲੱਭਦਾ ਫਿਰਾਂ ਵਜੂਦ ਆਪਣਾ , ਐਸਾ ਗਵਾਚਾ ਤੇਰਾ ਪਿਆਰ ਵਿਚ, ਫਰਕ ਨਾ ਦਿਸੇ ਮੈਨੂੰ ਕੋਈ, ਮੇਰਾ ਯਾਰ ਅੰਦਰ ਮੇਰੇ ਤੋਂ ਮੈਂ ਅੰਦਰ ਆਪਣੇ ਯਾਰ ਵਿਚ, Lost in your love, I roam around looking for my own being, my existence, I can’t tell a difference, I see my beloved in me and myself in my beloved     ਰੱਬ ਨੂੰ ਮੈਂ ਤਾਂ ਮੰਨਾ ਜੇ ਮਿਲਾਏ ਯਾਰ ਮੇਰਾ , ਮਿਟਾਵੈ ਜੁਦਾਈ , ਇਸ਼ਕ ਬਣਿਆ ਮਜ੍ਹਬ ਮੇਰਾ, ਕਾਫ਼ਿਰ ਹੋਇਆ ਮੈਂ ਛੱਡ ਕੇ ਖ਼ੁਦਾਈ. I will believe in God only if it brings my beloved to me, Love became my religion and I left God and became an Infidel   ਲੱਭੇ ਨਾ ਮੈਨੂੰ ਉਹ ਖੂ ਇਸ਼ਕ ਦਾ , ਜਿਸ ਦਾ ਪਾਣੀ ਮਿਟਾਵੈ ਦਿਲ ਦੀ ਤੇਹ ਮੇਰੀ, ਉਡਦੀ ਫਿਰੂ ਹਵਾਵਾਂ ਵਿਚ ਤਾਂ ਵੀ ਲੱਭ ਦੀ   ਤੈਨੂੰ, ਜਦ ਬੱਲ ਕੇ ਹੋ ਜੂ ਮਿੱਟੀ ਦੇਹ ਮੇਰੀ. Can’t ...

When I am gone and it’s all bones and dust, Throw my ashes on the mountains, that's where I should rest, I’ll melt with the snow and in the rivers I’ll flow, I’ll find you, they’ll take me there when winds will blow   With me, will come the story which I couldn’t tell, couldn’t write, Will also come a poem which I couldn’t complete, couldn’t recite, A restless heart, will find a home then, it must, When I am gone and it’s all bones and dust.   On the wings of eternity, like a free bird, I’ll fly, No boundaries, no limits, just wide open blue sky, Free from pain, a gleeful soul, riding the gust, When I am gone and it’s all bones and dust.