That's what she gave me to smell in a little bowl that resembled Moroccan antique and before I write about it there are a few other reflections that I do not want to miss writing about, influenced by the powerful lesson I took from her as I walked back home.
This week was emotionally enriching , and at the same time tremendously draining too; it was the head and tail of the same coin; all for the same reasons!
Rene's Achievement: Fresh in my mind to write about is Rene's achievement; Rene is an old friend's daughter, doing her 2nd year of Communicative English and Psychology, and has been for quite sometime my favourite as I love to read her mails; the structure and expressions and observations and narrations are all brilliantly superb and yet wierd, with a tinge of insanity that offers her the license to do what she do so well. She use to be a wierd kiddo when she was small; she would answer haphazardly, would be seen sitting on the chair with her legs folded up and chin resting on her knees, hands wrapping her legs, with an absolutely shabby hairstyle; then too, though her elder sister was more studious and disciplined, I use to sense an Arundhati Roy in her, for whatever reasons! She grew up to be disciplined enough to have Wednesdays as her Laundry day, Saturdays as vacuum-my-house day, and Sundays as empty-the-sink-and-keep-everything-annoyingly-clean-day.
She was invited to a Global Conference in Bangkok last week, to deliver a speech on 'Domestic Violence in the Middle East' to an audience including invited UN Delegates; not only did she deliver well, I was told that she was also quoted by two other delegates and secured (earned, rather) two internships with the UN. I was extremely delighted to hear that and I feel proud that I know Rene though she hasn't grown up in my mind than the little girl that she was when I last saw her - a music note that was off pitch!
A Song that inspired: Music reminded me of a particular song that I was so deeply connected that I stumbled upon last week; not only was this song beautiful for me, it also shaped a kaleidoscope of emotions, not because of its lyrics or the music, but the nuances of the tune of the song and the height of imaginations its composition offered to take me through. In listening to it, it had an image that sung to me, it offered a season that I longed for, it stimulated an inspiration and hunger, and the aching that accompanies an insanely thinking soul!!
The song also brought with its melodious voice the sad memory of the tragedy this singer went through as she lost her child who drowned in a swimming pool recently; no parent should live to see their children die, but with the love and admiration I have for the simplicity and humility of Chitra, she should have been the last if ever one should experience such a tragedy!! i wish she is recovering from the loss!!
Two women- one constructive and the other destructive: More than ones own tragedies and our ability to manage them, sometimes you are left broken when you are faced with challenges of others and the tragedies they are put through. Chote Lal's was one such story where he was diagnosed with acute leukemia and was admitted in a hospital in Delhi and Rameeta - a friend of mine for whom he worked was running around to help him survive, find him enough supply of blood units etc.
Even in that cause, there appeared a very narrow minded Indian lady from California who just couldn't see anything beyond the tip of her nose!! I simply wondered how can a woman who is capable of growing in her womb a life for nine months and deliver and grow to make a man or a woman can be so pathetic in her character!!!
Happiness is for the unthinking: With all this and more, this week pulled me more and more into the deep pits of thoughts that I love and hate to be in! A virtual-friend with whom I often engage in quite an intelligent discussion whenever we get chance was quick to quip 'happiness is for the unthinking' and that you cannot be a poet and not agonize!!! Will I trade my ability to think and express for a season full of peace? Will I trade peace and dive into the ocean of aching thoughts and derive from it experience to express? The battle of desires and logic, the conflicts of mind and heart, the rational thoughts fighting against the less powerful irrational hopes and wishes, it creates a lot of bruises all over, leaving behind a bleeding heart! The search for labels, the quest to box this to 'Box-A' and that to 'Box-B', just to justify our educated rational mind to hide and suppress the genuine emotions of our poor irrational heart, is, i realized, a comfortable mask that many of us wear.
Sometimes it hurts a lot; it hurts self, and it destroys others too. Amidst the richness of life around, it hurts to think of the emptiness I create for my own! The only metaphor I could think of that comes close to the intensity of feeling is of the agonizing experience in the dying hours of a prisoner being taken to the gallows - the infinite pain of nearing that emptiness of life, the sensation of wanting to vomit as he is escorted through the corridor before the break of dawn, the helplessness as you look inside and see your own design and the hardship you go through to redraw that design - erase the lines and dots and shapes and forms, and the fingers going numb from realizing how hard it is to redraw, in spite of how much you try!!!
Nonetheless, when facing what appears as the most agonizing experience, and when taking back a few steps through the memories searching for similar experiences, you realize that you've been through it before and survived its storm and kept your roots intact.
That's when I realized too that most of what you experience in life - joy, sorrow, anxiety, anger and so on and so forth - when reflected upon, you realize that the others have experienced of you in the past for almost the same reasons that you are experiencing it in the now. That's when you understand the wealth of joy you shared, or the depth of pain you caused to others whom you associated with.
I wish we can erase the smell of certain life experience by smelling some coffee!
The Perfume Shop: The girl at the perfume shop offered me different brands of perfumes and as I tested one by one on my wrist, I began to lose the ability to distinguish one from other; the ordinary one from the one that added inspiration with its aroma; the thick smell from the smell that brought back years of memories and decades of hopes.
All she did was to give me that bowl of coffee powder to smell, and break the pattern, and smell fresh again.
In NLP they call it breaking the state of mind!
The question is: what if I don't want to break the pattern? What if I want to dwell in the pain of the events and its experience, break open the oyster to find a little pearl of thought to express and revel!!!
It's a defining choice!
