On the journeys of my life

I remember travelling a lot. Every two or three years, we would pack our bags and set off for a new destination. Not all of them have been awesome but I grew to love them nevertheless. I loved the places and more than that I loved the preparation, the journey, the anticipation before knowing where I will be next.  I have never stopped boasting about it. Even today if I get a chance, I do that. I tell people that the number of states that I lived in is more than I can count on my fingers, I tell them that I have lived the life of the drought prone villages as well as the national capital of the country. I tell them I had travelled in trains, buses, flights, jeeps, and even trucks before I was even 10. I never, never regret those journeys or places. I am not in touch with any of the people from there. I don't think I will recognise them if I ever come across any of them. I don't think I remember the places much either but only in bits and pieces, the amazing journeys and the feelings that came with it. 

But I was young then, intrigued by the idea of new people, new places, new stories, new friends. Later in life, I have wondered how different would I have been if there were no journeys. I have wondered how is it to grow up rooted in a single place with same neighbours, with friends whom you know from childhood throughout your life. I have wondered if it would have been much the same. Perhaps not. Today I know that transfers are different from travels. That it is possible to travel and still be rooted to a place. I don't know how different that would have been or how similar. I know that if I have to choose for today, I will choose travel over transfer but not for yesterday. 

The yesterday's journeys have given me a thirst for novelty, curiosity to know more, travel (a little), to try and know people, to be a little more sensitive to differences, to be open to ideas, to be comfortable with solitude and more than that to love books. But perhaps it is also because of travels, that the idea of settling down unsettles me.To be in a place with no thoughts of ever leaving it, frightens me. The journeys have also made me detest cities. I like the calmness of towns and villages better. I probably miss out the fact that there are less luxuries and opportunities there, that my line of work allows me to stay only in big cities (That's not true at all. Never believe that no matter what your line of work is!). But the cities scare me and I continue to live there. (Such is life!) 

They say the towns are no better these days. But how can they say, when they don't know what is it that I am scared of, when I have no idea what is it that I scared of. We are shaped by the journeys we have taken and also the ones that we have missed. A person can be known better by the things he or she evades than the ones he or she is ready to confront. How much do I know myself?

Guest Post - Behind the Magnifying Glass

Here is the good news. I am blogging again. I will be more realistic this time and keep my blogging to weekends only. As a commitment to my blogging effort, here is a guest post from IndiaBookStore. Thank you IndiaBookStore for this beautiful article. :)

Behind the Magnifying Glass- A List of Favourite Fictional Detectives

Hello from IndiaBookStore! We are book lovers ourselves, so we decided to start a service that helps everyone find books at the best prices online (so that you can get more books for your buck!) We also blog about books: reviews, interviews, articles, news, we try to have it all. Thank you, Ankita, for featuring us here!

Favourite fictional detectives are not unlike old friends- you know their quirks, you are familiar with their methods and yet, so often, they show a dazzling display of brilliance and a capability to surprise you which reminds you all over again why you love them so much. While fiction has had its share of brilliant detectives, here is an extremely subjective list of my favourite detectives, whose stories I can always re-read with relish, no matter how well-remembered the culprit and the plot, just for the sheer joy of reading them. 

1. Sherlock Holmes- How does one not begin with Sherlock Holmes? A character so beloved that generation after generation tries to replicate him in books, TV series and films. Arthur Conan Doyle’s sleuth was so iconic that Doyle was forced to bring him back from dead, eight years after he had killed him off, due to sheer public pressure. Sherlock’s strength lies in the fact that the stories are both character and plot driven. Hence, readers not only remember the fascinating details of the Red-Headed league or the chilly atmosphere of the moors in The Hound of the Baskervilles, they also remember the easy camaraderie of Holmes and Watson with the same fondness and delight. Holmes remains a cultural icon even today and recent adaptations merely add to the greatness of the original detective.
2. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple- This remains a cheat since Poirot, a retired Belgian police officer living in London (first seen in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920), and amateur detective Jane Marple, an elderly spinster living in St. Mary Mead (first seen in The Murder at the Vicarage, 1930) are unique detectives who would probably have balked if they ever had had to solve a mystery together. Agatha Christie’s iconic characters, whose stories are the third most widely published books in the world, are brilliant, observant and polar opposites of each other. However, the main essence of their books lies not in their well crafted mysteries, but in the human interest present in the books. Christie spends pages devoted to developing characters so that by the end, we not only want the culprit caught; we want the rest to be proven innocent. The characters, the banters, the humour, the tragic touch, the inevitable romantic end- hers is not a murder alone, hers is a whole by-play of human life. Hercule Poirot proudly proclaims, “Journeys end in lovers’ meeting” while Miss Marple smiles knowingly as they happily match make and fix futures of people while fighting for justice in their own way, making them the world’s foremost meddling and heartwarming detectives
3. Father Brown- G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown, first seen in the short story ‘The Blue Cross’, 1910, is an old favourite. Despite the rather Gothic atmosphere, the scholarly outlook of the author, and the incongruous mildness of the detective (for detectives, even Miss Marple, are usually very agitated by the evil in men. Father Brown, invariably, chooses Christian forgiveness), Father Brown remains a brilliant if surprising detective. To the reformed criminal and then his friend, Flambeau, Father Brown is introduced as a mild, comical clergyman. The same man becomes a resounding power of good and mercy who changes the lives of the desperate with his love. Whether we see the books as an allegory of Christian forgiveness or a detective series with a religious undercurrent, the books, and the man himself are fascinating and worth a discovery. 
4. Flavia de Luce- A snooty, precocious, eleven year old genius solves mysteries in England in the late 1940s. If that is not fascinating enough, she is also a budding chemist, has a habit of being where she is not supposed to be and happens to live in a village which appears to be haunted by an astounding number of murders. Miss Marple would have felt right at home at Bishop’s Lacey. While her first book, Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, has admittedly some weaknesses, the next books go from strength to strength with author Alan Bradley’s awareness of his characters flaws and strengths showing up more vividly in the narration. For fans of cozy drawing room mysteries, Flavia de Luce will be a surprise packaged in the comfort of old-world British murders.
5. Feluda- When it comes to favourite detectives, it is hard to be objective with our very own Bengali detective Feluda. Thanks to English translations of one of the most famous creations of Satyajit Ray’s, Feluda has suddenly become accessible to the rest of the English speaking country and no more remains just a treasured childhood memory of Bengali denizens of the world. Helped with his nephew Topshe and his friend Jatayu, Feluda has a unique contribution to detective literature in India. Not only are the sensibilities of his plots very strictly maintained for a young audience, he shows a fascinating side of India in the 1970s, becoming a living social and historical study. While easy to dismiss as literature for children, it is Satyajit Ray’s genius which makes the detective so relevant, entertaining and plain, old good fiction.

                                                                                                                                - written by Ritika Palit

Of dreamers and dreams

I can't be a dancer if I don't dance. On an outset, this statement is so simple that nobody will disagree. It like wanting to count the stars without looking at the night sky. Yet the truth is is that most of us do so. We all dream and that is what sets us apart from all others. If you are lucky, you haven't forgotten your dream yet. And if you have, may be it is time you took a break to dream

The other day I was talking to a friend who tells me, "... so if we all want to be that writer, why don't we just write the book? " Yes, why exactly? Where is that book I want to write, the song I want to sing, the journey I want to take and so on and so forth? It is there of course, in our mind. When I was in Varanasi, one of my wishes (that was never fulfilled) was to watch the sunrise in the Ganges ghats. The first step to realizing that wish was to wake up before the sun rose, which I did a few times but on those days the clouds beat me to watching the sunrise. At least you can't say that I did not attempt it but I still failed.

We all are afraid of failures and a distant dream is easier to nurture than a broken dream. So the book is never written in fear of rejection, the song never sung in fear of ridicule and the trip never made in fear of cancellation.

For some things, we can attempt and attempt and attempt and for some things, there is a deadline so they are attempted either to be completed, or to be given up. But most of our dreams require a lot of effort (sometimes just a little that is exaggerated by our devilish minds) and can be pushed to the tomorrow that never really arrives and hence we look at that treasured dream in the distant horizon and hope that we will reach there, one day.

And so this post is to remind me that dream, or no dream, I can't be a blogger if I don't blog. The actual dream of course, comes a little later.

In Search of a Lost World

Before I was out of kindergarten, I had already tried falling into rabbit holes, getting inside mirrors and climbing up trees, none of which led to any different world. Before long I realized that the only thing that entered at night through my open window was cold and sore throat but never any one called Peter Pan nor any flying object that remotely resembled a fairy. I should have given up at that time but I didn't.

Before I started my high school I was sure that the charming prince that all the stories kept talking about was somewhere  out there but in a different country or place, certainly he couldn't be from the same place that I stayed in. There was nothing charming about the boys I knew. By the time I went to high school, I had no interest in the prince anymore, charming or otherwise. There were other worlds of mystery and adventure that occupied my mind. By the time I finished my high school, I was so impressed by these imaginary worlds that I wanted to make one of my own. I believed everyone has a story and I believed each one of them are worth telling. And so I took time to listen to those. A friend once accused me of being a story stealer. The thought made me a little proud and I hoped with each story I stole, I was making my own story richer and better.

I wanted to tell my story. But I never did. Not after I finished high school, not in the college, not after graduation, not while I started working, not when I joined my post graduate course and not after I finished it, not when the corporate world sucked me up for the second time and not even now. Because, I don't have a story. At least not yet or rather not anymore.

By now I have lost even the fragments of my imaginary world. I don't have the thoughts or the characters who kept my childhood alive and colorful. Nor do I remember their features or presence. In fact I have started having doubts if they ever existed. They probably didn't. It is just that up until then, I believed that they did. Now I don't. I have heard, seen and read many stories. They all are still worth telling but perhaps I was mistaken. In the course of listening so many stories, I forgot how to tell one. And so now I no more want to create a world of my own. I just want to roam about or get lost in all those other created worlds. May be, just may be then I will find some of the fragments of my world back.

And so time passes

"I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I am tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that's been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by absence?" - The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

That's the latest book I have picked up. There are a few more around. Some half read, some still not started and some on the verge of ending. They keep me company. It feels good to have books around me. Not a lot. Just a few so that I know I have something to do when I don't want to think or talk or when I can't sleep and songs are not enough. Most of the time I pick up a book and that makes everything simple. Cooking helps too but most of the time I used to be lazy. I have improved. One more task just gives me more choices on what to do to not think.

Then I pick up random hobbies. Blogging used to be a big thing once upon a time. One time I started crafts. Gifted that to someone. I started sketching. continued it for sometime but left all my books back at home so now I have to go buy them again. That will go in to my list of things to do. I picked up origami recently and used all available waste papers at home to makes all kinds of birds, flowers, butterflies. But it took too much space so I suspended a few of them above my bed and pasted the rest on the walls. If nothing else, it made my room a little more lively. Something that makes me smile every time I enter the room.  

Weekends, I meet up friends, go for a movie (rarely) or a play (latest craze) or just make a list of things to buy and go shopping. I am not much of a shopper. Not when alone unless there is something specific that I want to buy. Discs and pubs don't excite me at all so those places are not even thought of unless someone else suggests and even then most of the time I find a reason to not go. I wish I started writing again. But these  days words seem to just disappear before I can pen them down. Then again when I am trying to run away from thinking, how can I write. But I will again, soon.

"I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way." - The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Veiled Existence

There is only so much that one can know about somebody. The truth is that the picture is always incomplete. Add to that fact that we are all evolving everyday. What I believed yesterday might be a fairy tale today or what I will believe tomorrow might be even unknown to me today. But that should not be a surprise because how much do we even know ourselves. We try to complete our own picture everyday  not for others but for ourselves.

And yet, every single day while going through our daily chores, meeting the same people we met yesterday, we keep thinking that we know them. We don't. We never will, just as they will never know us. It is common for most of us to complain from the very teenage days or sometimes even before that nobody understands. The opposite perspective is always lost: that we never understand anybody either. I could extend it further saying that even if I understood someone at that one moment of interaction we had, it was lost the very next moment because we evolve every single moment. May be the everyday effort to understand every single person around us is like the myth of Sisyphus: futile but still repeated.

Then again it is necessary at some level to understand a person so that you can interact. As a part of the society, that probably is the most important code of conduct that we follow. We try to complete the picture we have no idea about by our own whims and fancies and then when we have done so, we claim we have understood everyone. An illusion we create, nurture and defend for life. What can we do, after all to err is human.

Credits:

Inspiration for sketch

Random Things About Me

DREAMER

You're a romantic in your outlook with a bit of taste for the exotic. You love feeling the sea breeze in your hair, sun on your skin... You always take the first dip. Your choice of drink shows you care about your health and make sure you're putting the right stuff in. When it comes to holidays you reckon they should always be indulgent -  a very special treat and a chance to recharge your batteries in luxurious surrounding as well as spending quality time with family and friends.

 THRILLER

As for the home you have an expressive personality with contemporary taste. You like to be surrounded by the precious possessions that define who you are. For kicks you like to be spoilt rotten. It's always so much fun opening gifts. nothing beats that kind of surprise.

BACK TO BASICS
When it comes to art you find beauty in the world around you. Nothing is more precious than natural treasures. As for music it's the soundtrack to your world. You're up to speed with downloading and your mp3 is always close by. Music helps you concentrate. you probably find it hard to ever switch it off. You're never happier than when you are snuggled up eyes shut. So whether you're worn out or just plain lazy lay back relax and catch up on some zzzzzs! When you think of freedom - the great outdoors spring to mind. Getting back to nature is a big draw. It's the perfect place to find peace and quiet.

THOUGHTFUL

You're an indulgent character and you treasure your possessions. You're a magpie; if it sparkles you just have to have it! For you friendship is all about being there for one another. You can't imagine life without your best friends. And they are the first place you go when you need some advice or a shoulder to cry on.

Well, not bad I would say.

Find you VisualDNA.