I was jogging in a park this morning. Hearing some dogs bark, I picked up the closest piece of sturdy twig in self defense. Turning around I saw that everything had already been settled and there was no reason for me to worry. So after having walked some fifty feet I dropped the twig and continued to jog.

And this is when it dawned upon me that I had possibly been used as an instrument to re-position the twig there to facilitate somebody else. That I was possibly part of a bigger picture that I was unaware of. Just like so many times random people have stepped into my life, performed a deed and vanished in a second, so possibly, I was was playing a similar part. Perhaps, this is how we are inter-weaved into the lives of anonymous people.

I often wonder what is the significance of the trivial. Mostly I receive no answers. But this rare opportunity that I got revealed to me the harmony in daily action. How exciting would it be to know what part am I playing in the grander plan! More importantly, what is the plan, how will it be achieved and why achieve it?

Trivials must make more sense than I understand
And though at heart we all prefer simplicity
We must pass through all that is complex in order to achieve it.
How each thing ends up being related to the other is incredible.
How intense and complicated the cause and effect relationship can be
I may never completely realize.
So,  I often think of the mundane
And wonder  how important it is?
And of the millions of mundane things I have done so far
There are only a rarity that i recall.
What is the meaning of living and forgetting?
What is the meaning of remembrance?
I feel deja vu out of connection to past
But what that past was I never recall.
Where is the beginning and how farther can it be traced?
The end I wont talk about
Since what happens after it looks like vacuum.
Am I a part of a story or am I the story?
Or perhaps  am too insignificant to be either.
And with these questions I fall in the vicous circle
Of coming back to the long asked question
What am I here for?

Holy Month, Holy People

This Ramzan I could pen down ten best ways to eve tease, thanks to my frequent visits to Jama Masjid. This place had more innovation in those terms than any other that I have visited. This, however, was not all that this month was about. This month softened me from inside towards a people I have known less. One of the most profound acts that the Masjid played on me, left me free of inhibitions towards its people. I was deeply touched when a small group of skull cap and white kurta clad send over a fruit to me at iftaar time through a little child. Such acts continued on other days and I felt so naïve in having lived in stereotypes about people I did not know. In my mind, these little acts of goodness that impulse delivers through us is what human goodness must be about.

Typically, I should thank a friend for asking me to frequent that place with her for working on a photo essay about the month. But it comes across to me as an act that must happen in any case. People who make it happen are only instruments in the hands of time. And so my gratefulness takes a backseat and what clouts me is the marvel at the goodness of impulses. The series of photographs that I created there is a dedication to all the wonderful spirits who let the goodness live in them. You can see the images at the following link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/saumyakhandelwalphotos/sets/72157631189476522/

That which I thought belonged to me, is owned by so many others. The more I see, the more I get convinced of my insignificance. The excitement of a new experience embodies itself into pride at the first instance. But its not long before the pride gives way to nothingness and offers a realization that all that done so far does not count when there are so many others who have done a lot more than what I have. Then what is it that really matters?

I think of what I am.

How I am different now than I was then.

And how similar I become to the past

In the course of moving on.

We are continuosly walking in circles.

We reach the place we had started from.

Only, this time, we had better judgement

Than the last.

Are these concentric circles,

Or are they the same ones that we are treading.

The shade and the sun, the damp summer afternoon

And the numb winter fingers, and,

The drenched monsoon pyajamas.

Are they the uphill climb or the downhill fall,

That I reach every time?

I am possibly set off on the wrong path.

Or am I missing something on the one

That i have been treading since childhood?

And again all of it falls to numb ear drums

Pessimism, fear, scepticism, turmoil;

How free is the human spirit of the adulteration

Until off course the anti-spirit takes over

To not let you be happy for very long.

I continue to live for the moments of the spirit to come out victorious.