Dances with the Leaves

Things I love the most about Fall

1. The Leaves have a story to tell. A story of the year that's ending . A story of great change where only the strongest leaves stay with the tree rooted to their feet as adversity and time sweep the rest away. They flutter longingly , some more colorful than the others - But change they must and with the changing seasons , change they will.

2. The 5 desperate cold minutes spent in the car while defrosting each morning while the warm air kicks in ..

3. The crisp , almost brittle air - so sharp and dry that the faintest thought would crease it .

4.Grey sweatshirt ...Like fall ..Grey too is transient ..Neither black nor white ..Neither summer nor winter ..In between and fleeting and hence magical

5. Starbucks Peppermint Flavored Latte !!!!

6. The struggle to find matching socks each morning

7. Pre Holiday loneliness turning into Pre Holiday Cynicsm turning into Pre Holiday introspection turning into Holiday turning into Post Holiday Resolution turning into Post holiday calories turning into Post Holiday retrospection

8.Writing the yearly obiturary

9. Listening to Auld Lang Syne

10. Making new year resolutions

11. Lying indoors while theres a perfect storm outside .

12. An excuse to light candles

13. An excuse to eat dessert

14. More Holidays

15.Scarves and Gloves .

What can I say . Its my favorite time of the year !
It makes me happy , makes me think and makes me love everything a little bit more intensely.
..and no matter how hard I try , when Sepetember ends , and the leaves are all dressed up to dance and the wind sings a song of promise ..I cant help but fall for Fall.
Enjoy this one ..something tells me its going to be special .

Georgia on my mind

Growing up in Bombay - If someone would have told me that years later I would find myself sitting on an rollaway bed in a sleepy northern suburb typing this- I would have been shocked.

But what would have shocked me even more - is if someone would have told me that I would fall in love with this city - that has four distinct seasons , with pink blossoms in spring , hot summers with thirsty blue skies, beautiful autums seasoned with fiery oranges and rustic browns and quiet remniscent postcard grey fashionable winters . So much in love - that I would not want to spend a single weekend in the fall anywhere else .

That this would be the city where I would rebuild my life , reconstruct broken dreams , face my scariest fears ,make close friends and along with growing up , this is where I'd grow roots to my shaky , sometimes questionable existance miles away from home.

Here is where I would learn to drive , to dance , to practice yoga , make friends , to fall in love with life . Here is where I would belatedly make peace with unkept promises , find acceptance and understanding of my own self more than anyone else. I'd learn to value my life , my roots , ideals and myself. Here is where I'd stop fearing tommorrow - and learn to make the most of the fleeting day. This is where I would learn to take risks , smile recklessly and laugh wholeheartedly.

That I would be sitting in a whispering shadows of a waning year , on the threshold of a watercolored fall in the year 2006 - smiling to myself at midnight , because for the briefest of times , in this city .. There is nowhere else I would rather be and there is no one else I would rather be .

If someone had told me all this and more back then...yes , I would have been very surprised.
Thank God for Surprises.

I;m 27 years old - and my city is Atlanta.

Water Water Everywhere

They say that the world faces a greater peril than we now know . If the wars that mark our generation are those over oil - Those that will define generations to come will be ones fought over another precious , yet often easily ignore resource- Water .

In Shantaram one of my favorite passages from the book is where we're told how we are born from water and how to water we all must return . Several eons ago - there was water everywhere . The earth was one big ocean . Then as life began and evolved over the decades - we began to live on land . Yet - it is water that flows through our veins distributing life saving enzymes and hormones and platelets to our organs and cells , it is water that we cry through our tears ..And it is water that we are surrounded in for close to 9 months even before we step into the world. Its remarkable then that even as we walk with our feet on the ground ..Firmly most of the time , the saline content of the water that surrounds the baby in an expectant mother - is exactly the same saline content of the ocean . Not more ..Not less .The same .

Water has been worshipped and revered in all religions . In Hindus - its water that we pray to ..In almost all rituals...In a satyanarayan pooja , we even attempt to gather the water from all the seas and rivers in a kalash and pray to it . Its water that baptizes babies in other religions and marks their entry into the world . Every religion and scripture in the world ..Tells a scary story about the world ending through a merciless deluge of -Water .

Water calms , soothes , heals , purifies and loves . ..destroys

I read an amazing book not too long ago called Hidden Messages in Water , that made me think of these and other things . A Japanese scientist decided to take different petri dishes of water from the same source . He subjected each Petri dish to different environments . Some were placed in a home with happy families , some in an office with squabbling colleagues , some Petri dishes were exposed to classical music , others to heavy metal rock . Some were taken to war zones ..Others were taken to Machu Pichu and to the himalayas.Some were whispered words of love and loyalty and friendship ..and others were yelled and mocked at .

Then he took these Petri dishes and froze them till crystals were formed in each of them .
When those crystals were observed under a microscope - the result was shocking . Water , that had been exposed to positive emotion , love , beauty , peace , happiness , classical music ..All had formed beautiful crystals . The most beautiful crystals were formed by saying Thank You and Love and Gratitude . On the other hand - water subjected to negativity , fear , anger , war , was in a unrecognizable frozen mass.

The theory went that water absorbs everything . If you take a glass of water and put it in the center of a room - you see yourself , the glass and the entire room in it . Water more than anything is the creator and the sustainer of life . When you take any liquid and freeze it - the resulting solid is always denser . Not Water - Ice floats on water ..So that even in the coldest sub zero temperatures - ice floats on water maintaining a constant temperature below it - so that sub aquatic life forms may previal . Water - the preserver . So Water preserves the emotions of its surroundings ...reflects and reproduces those emotions .

One of the most interesting interpretations in the book was that of the theory of relativity . E = MC2
E = Energy
M= Minds
C = Consciousness

So the amount of energy generated by a group of minds is equal to the number of minds by the square of their consciousness .

A group of people in Japan set out to do that . In Hundreds - they gathered by a side of a polluted lake . And chanted prayers and meditated for hours . After that - the level of pollution in the lake actually dropped. Its said that their breathing and meditation generated ultrasonic waves of a frequency - that even most pollution experts said - is believed to destroy algae and reduce the effects of pollutants .

Theres a lot of things I have read about Water - since that day that have taken me by surprise .
I guess I dont realize how lucky I am to drink a glass whenever I have the need to .
The book ended with a chapter on how we should be nice to Water - and say Love and Gratitude or Thank You before we drink a glass . I've been doing just that ever since . It makes me smile ..Even at tea end of long tiring days like today .

Love ,Gratitude and Water .

Another Day Another Way

In our lives , often marked by periods of persistent change , deep rooted introspection and long standing decisions , the coin flip is often between holidng on and letting go .
In one of the most remarkable pieces of advice ever given to me , I was told that it would be very easy to let go and move on . It would also be very easy to Hold on and never let go . Its making the decision that would be exhausting .
I struggle with it , everyday .

As humans I guess our primary instict is to make things work . That with good will , good intention and good actions , we can be the change and change the world . I guess to compensate - the world has a life of its own ..and often our energy and devtion is not only misplaced but could also be better served elsewhere . But how soon is soon - how soon is one persons letting go ..
another persons giving up ?

If Edison would have stopped on his 699th attempt and decided to do something else ..I guess I would be trying this in the dark ..better so ..probably would not be typing this at all .
So I guess Like him , I too tell myself everynight that I should not give up or let go ..that I should hang in there , that tommorrow will be different ..and meanwhile ..I havent failed ..I;ve just found another way that doesnt work .

Tommorrow will be another day , another way .

Clockwork

What day is it ? Squeaked the piglet
Said Pooh .." Its Today ..Its my favorite Day " !

I loved saying this over and over again when I was a kid . This weekend it call came rushing back . Time is of the essence and Time ..more than anything is fleeting .
We may not be here together tommorrow , we may not even be here tommorrow , Tommorow
we may be here , but the here as we know it ..may no longer be here . And if that sounds convoluted and complicated - ignore me , Smell the roses , Taste the Rain , Search for a Rainbow ..take the day off and solve crossword puzzles all day , Find stars that look identical and paint the moonlight yellow.

I remember getting an email few weeks ago ..one of those "if you fwd this to 3 people , you will find true love ..if you fwd this to 10 people you will witness a miracle .." ..Today ..be your own miracle .Its all the time we really have for sure. Right Here Right Now ..Waqt Ka Kya Bharosa and everything that lies in between .

Call you parents , make peace with someone , hug your best friend and love recklessly .
The world is changing in your sleep and when you wake up tommorrow - everything will be different , if only a little bit . People and situations change slowly , one miniscule bit at a time and time ..time is just ticking .
and while you are at it ..dontforget to hold hands and pray that we never have to learn to speak the language of letting go .


From a Prayer Book

There is more light than shadow;
There are more smiles than cares;
More grass grows on the meadow
Than brambles, weeds, and tares.
There is more song than weekpin;
There is more sun than rain;
There is more golden reaping
Than lost and blighted grain.
There is more peace than terror;
There is more hope than fear;
There is more truth than error;
More rights than wrongs appear.
On the long road to glory
We climb more than we fall;
And by and large the story
Comes out right after all.

Hope and the 21st Century

Two weeks ago , I was at the end of a long journey . It never ceases to surprise me , that I always seem to lose faith at the very end of a trial ..than at the onset when everything seems so unattainable and the miles are long drawn .

Paulo Coelho said in the Alchemist , that the darkest hour is just before the dawn . Every Journey begins with beginners luck ..And ends with the travelers being sorely tested . Things seem only to get more difficult and worse at the end , because we are being tested for every single lesson we learnt along the way .

Someone once said that we can have anything we want in the world ..As long as we are ready to give everything else up for it . Are we ?
I was once told that my prayers would be definitely answered because what I was asking for wasn't impossible.

But what is a prayer - if it isn't a plea for the impossible ?
What is it to hope ..If it isn't to hope for something unreasonable , unachievable and undeserved ?
What is a miracle if it isn't an ordinary one ?
what's magic ..If its not the absolutely unbelievable ?
What is a dream ..If it isn't unrealized ?

Have we lost faith - in the greater force , that guides us and movues us ..with us and without us ?
What is Hope ? ..And what does it mean in the 21st Century ?

Big Bang Theory

The Big Bang Theory says that a really long time ago..several light years ago ..there was a huge collision of celestal bodies. From that - the earth , mars , saturn and all our friendly neighbourhood planets were born . Its also said that the direction and velocity with which each planet now spins was determined by the impact and the nature of the collision .

I guess our lives are also born out of a Big Bang Theory .

Our Worlds meet , Our worlds collide and somehow we spin in one direction or the other way .. Sometimes it feels like we are free falling , through the sky ..but somehow we find something or someone to revolve around , thankfully some of us can still spin around ourselves simultaneoulsy, but life finds a direction and all is well once again .

Direction - I wish there was a Google Earth for life as well. A Lifequest.
Where we could enter where we currently were and where we wanted to be ..and seamlessly it would map out what turns to take , when to drive slow or pace ..when we would have to pay a price for taking a particular road ..and when we would reach our destination . Or Jacks Sparrows compass - to show us where our hearts true desire was - no matter how the poles were aligned .

I guess in the interim - All we can do is fasten the seat belts and have faith in the cosmos that in the clashing between our multiple outer and inner worlds - we shall find our true north .

The Importance of being Irwin

There isnt a dry eye in my world.

-Published in the Times of India 09/07/2006
Authored by :Anand Soondas



Importance of being Irwin -Anand Soondas

Chief Seattle’s 1854 letter to ‘The Great White Chief in Washington’ said: ‘How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and sparkle of the water, how can you buy them... Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy... This we know: The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family’.
The letter, sent after colonisers offered to buy land from the native Indians, is a beautiful and profound statement on the environment. This is where Steve Irwin comes in. He somehow seemed to believe deep down that all things are connected. Today, we need people like Crocodile Hunter. Like never before.
His death by a stingray — how ironic that he should be killed by a creature of the very kingdom he so loved — off the Great Barrier Reef is a setback to the global animal protection and conservation movement.
Irwin made venomous vipers and creepy spiders look like they were truly a part of the planet we inhabit and showed that all things are connected.
We have all cringed as he hugged the not-so-delicate looking beasts and played with them, winning some kind of a smallboy game at the end of the show. Crikey, he said jubilantly after that. One thing, though, that shone through was his love for animals. Had it not been for that, the immensely popular show ‘Crocodile Hunter’, first aired in Australia sometime in 1992, would have been reduced to a little more than a circus and the man to just a freak entertainer.
Viewers across the world saw that. No wonder then that the wildlife park that he inherited from his equally zealous parents turned into a major tourist attraction not just for enthusiasts in Australia but from across the world.
Such was the man’s celebrity status that Australian prime minister John Howard, who in 2003 asked Irwin to be part of a gala barbecue in US president Bush’s honour, said he was shocked and distressed at the khaki shorts-clad environmentalist’s death.
At a time when flora and fauna are dwindling by the hordes, we need heroes like Irwin. People, who like Chief Seattle, believe that ‘‘if we spit on the earth, we spit on ourselves’’, and that if we continue to treat our environment with disdain, we will see the ‘‘end of living and the beginning of survival’’.
Activists like Irwin are especially relevant for countries like India because it is here — due to government inefficiency, corruption, poverty, a well connected and powerful poaching mafia and porous borders — that innumerable animal species have either become extinct or are dying out without anyone batting an eyelid.
We have already lost the cheetah in 1952, and we are fast losing the tiger and the Asiatic lion. A rare animal now but found in abundance earlier, the Gir sanctuary is literally the last sanctuary of the Asiatic lion. At 300, the fear of losing more hangs in the air. The tiger’s tale, too, doesn’t burn bright anymore. There were an estimated 50,000 at the turn of the century. We would be fortunate, according to tiger experts, to have 2,000 now. The two-horned rhinoceros of Sunderbans wasn’t lucky though. It’s gone. And on the waitlist of extinction are the swamp deer, clouded leopard, wild ass, Kashmir stag, musk deer, barking deer, Himalayan hog deer, Asian elephant, sarus crane et al.
At a time when the deserts are flooding and Cherrapunji is short of water, we need people and movements to save us from ourselves. We need ambassadors who will package their charisma and passion for the environment to send out an urgent message to protect nature and the lives she holds in her womb. Or else we will soon be telling each other what Seattle told president Franklin Pierce: ‘‘Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. The end of living and the beginning of survival’’.

The End

Today someone shared a remarkable piece of wisdom with me . A close friend said that "Everything was going to be good in the end ..and if it wasn't all good ..Then it just wasn't the end " . It was precisely what I needed to hear on some level.

I guess its so true . Its so tempting to classify something as an "ending" . To think of things as being so final and unchangeable. It makes moving on easier I guess ..And coming to terms with a loss ...Or makes me wake up and take notice of whets really important for me to sustain .

This year has been full of surprises .
I've been far more reckless than in the years before and life has proved to be that much more challenging and mesmerizing. And more often than not - While I have been tempted on one hand to classify things as over and done with , write off conversations , people , dreams and relationships ..on the other hand ..there has also been the growing awareness than what might look like an ending is probably not..
and I'm beginning to realise that no matter what happens - its my reactions that define my life , far more than what gets sent my way through the cosmic chaos

I guess Endings are always "in betweens"..on journeys whose destinations are unknown , friendships that are yet to blossom and relationships that are yet to be tested. But some endings - are finite . And are more often than not beginnings ..On other interesting journeys of the mind . Just as twilight dawns into the day , unknowingly with a whisper of certainty.

I guess I will have to wait another 4-5 years before finding out the fate of my many questions and resolutions ..To see if they are merely the ends of a beginning ..Or the beginnings of an end...to understand their significance in the story of my life ..maybe I'll forget how much it hurt , hopefully I wont forget how much I loved , maybe I'll hold on to the dream , maybe I'll step up to the challenge , or maybe there will be a surprise. Time as usual will decide , what will get highlighted and what will get edited.

Meanwhile Life is calling - I guess I better turn the phone back on.

Unattatched Available Happiness

If you ask a group of people to define happiness - chances are you will be staring at multiple ideas ...Theres so many ppl who wake up saying "I just want to be happy " ..Have we placed happiness on too high a pedestal ? ...like something thats just meant to happen ...a state that needs to be attained and sustained ..forever ..from its conception to the end of our times.

Why dont any of us wake up in the morning and say " I just want to make someone happy " ..much the same way like when we fall in love ..we fear that whoever it is we are in love with will stop loving us back ..instead of fearing that we will never stop loving them even after they choose to walk away .

Someone once told me that I should try and fall in love . It was my chance at being goal oriented . That it would make me happy . Love would complete me and there would be companionship . That I should not be too picky - because compromise defined life . I said I wish it were that easy .

And then years later - while I tried to maintain a clear mind and balance today , I could not help but smile.
Theres happiness , theres plenty of love , companionship even ..and I was definately not being picky ....because I;d found those things in multiple avenues and other people -and in myself even . I guess my wish came true.

Maybe I didnt find it all in one person ? ...but can anyone really ?

So nowadays - its not an uncommon assumption on the part of a lot of people - that just because someone is unattatched , that theres no happiness , love ..that its stemming from high expectations and being too rigid .

It really makes me wonder who came up with these words and definitions.

Who came up with the word "unattatched " anyways ?!

It makes me gag when people say that ..just like when people say .."it wasnt personal" ...what they mean is that it wasnt personal to them ..lol ..so when someone asks me if I'm unattached ..I want to say that the last time I checked I wasnt surgically plugged into a wall if thats what they were getting at ...or ask them to recollect what their english teachers had said about men being islands ..:)
..like the last time I was asked if I was single and available ..I wanted to say that I came in packs of twos and at if you bought two of me then you could have the 3rd one for free.

I guess if one was too be too rigid - then instead of having an open mind and being flexible to the whims of fate and love as it meant to them , one would succumb to a fixed pre defined notion of what constituted as an everyday defintition of love a.k.a happiness and try and do anything and everything to make it come true ..even if it were a tad forced and over the top ..did someone mention the word expectations ?..high or otherwise.

I guess if one was attempting to have a flexible mind about where life was leading them - they would be enjoying the change in the seasons and smiling at the moonlight .... Because they wouldnt have any more expectations about who or what tommorrow brought than what today did ..because today looked pretty darn good .Relatively ofcourse :)

Laughing out Loud .
Amen.

Just Harried

I've been reading some articles online about how J.K Rowling plans to kill Harry Potter in a sensational end to the wizard series .

Theres been debates about the whys and hows surrounding this . I was chatting with some friends about this over dinner . Some said that its to ensure that no one picks up where she left off and that way the originality and uniqueness of her character can be preserved . Others said that its the best way to ensure maximum sales ..afterall it was Shakespeare who made tragedies so popular . The author on the other hand has maintained that she had envisioned the end of the story far before filling the blanks in between and that she will not deviate from the end she had once planned .

I jumped onto the potter bandwagon far too belatedly . My roomate in grad school owned the first 3 books ..and it wasnt until a severe pollen allergy struck and I was grounded at home on some very sunny days that I much reluctantly picked up the books and started reading them . So once again ..Like mots things I love ..I did not chosse them ..they choose me ..I did not stand a chance . From the socerers stone ..to the triwizard tournament ..to HBP

Off my all time favorite quotes ..ever ...2 are from Harry Potter ..both between Dunbledore and Harry . The first when DD tells Harry " It is our choices ..far more than our abilities that make us who we are " and the 2nd when DD tells Harry at the end of the Order of the Phoenix .."It matters not that you could not control your mind ..in the end it was your heart that saved you " .
I've become one of those who will line up outside Barnes and Noble at midnight waiting to get the next book and will read them over and over again ..until I'm sick of them .

I've always admired how real the books are ..in terms of life . I've always been a avid kids book reader . As an adult ..theres nothing like going back to read a book you once read as a child .. It shows you how remarkable the journey has been and reminds you of what has changed and thanfully what hasnt .

The Little Prince , The Secret Garden , The Little Princess , Anne of Green Gables , The Black Stallion ..and now Harry Potter . 60% of all the books I own are kids book . Theres something enchanting about reading a book thats been gifted down through the years . Its like you are flipping through the very pages of history itself . Wondering - how the days were back then .. Remembering a place that you werent a part of ..a story that happened way before your own . When I was 18 , I studied an old Halliday Resnick ..which also ranks in my all time greatest books list ..that my dad had used since his college days . My breath used to catch everytime I opened a page that was ear marked . And one day ..I'll pass along all my kids books to someone ..with stories from my life bookmarking the yellow pages .

Hope . So if and when Harry dies ..what are we going to explain to millions of children who choose to be like Harry ..chose the road lesser travelled than easier weaker options . How do we explain that his ultimate sacrifice ..even though it saved the world ..ended his own .
Hope is the one thing we can give our each other and children which only needs imagination and love . At no cost ...and for the sake of hopeful kids everywhere and the hopeful child hidden inside all of us ..I hope that Harry does not die . If only for preserving the sanctity of good triumphing over evil and the power of love . I hope for Harry .