Monday, April 28, 2014

Of a visit to some wonderful places

I was contemplating on writing this post since I came back from vacation but was not sure what I should write about places already dubbed as heaven on earth or world wonders. And so I write about what I thought as I looked at two wonderful destinations in a way totally apart .

I visited Kashmir when it was not yet blooming in green as expected due to more snow this year. It was all trees with mostly bare branches or buds yet to bloom in their full glory and yet and yet.. it still can leaving you charmed . The mountains as you gaze make you recall why they say Himalayas protect India and their might descends upon you whether you want to or not.
The gondola ride in Gulmarg to Mount Arafat was one the best rides of my life .. so good that when I come back and look at pics I seriously wonder was that true or just a Bollywood movie.



The chilled temperatures made me assess my own ability to withstand such extreme weather (never mind that I packed very badly due to a busy schedule for a vacation which I was almost to cancel due to various troubles) . I finalized that for all I talk about nice cool places ,I need the sun every other day if nothing else.
The weather …ah the fresh air , never even realized till I came back that how good and healthy life feels with simple good food
and fresh cool air far away from computers.
That the tulip garden had still not bloomed fully broke my heart enough and as ever it was hard to drag myself off gardens and magnolia trees.
So terrible have we become in these cities that few of my friends  when they saw the vase of a roadside dhaba hotel
with a big bunch of daffodils they were not sure that they were real.

For someone who loves nature more than anything else I guess it will be a understatement but after visiting Kashmir and then going to see the Taj was well seeing the difference between what man can create at his best and what nature can create with such ease.

Taj was certainly a beautiful thing to behold but still , as I was sitting beside a blue river
with trees on the side raising a toast to heaven and surrounded by snow capped imposing peaks a day before
I found it hard to be amazed and fall in love with cold white stunningly carved marble .
That I guess is just me .

I recall the beautiful Shalimar Bagh which even in its state of neglect is more loving than  , if you bother to look at the back of the Taj.  Its gross and extremely sad the way the government there milks the heritage in the city to the max due to it being a top destination for foreigners but does little to beautify the city in any way. Its as sad as it can be.

So we go on and laugh that Jahangir certainly had  more life and loved Nur jahan more to create Shalimar bagh for her than Shah Jahan who created a tomb which while certainly stunning and imposing still feels a tomb only.
It was wonderful though when you walk through a city and fort where just a few hundred years ago kings and queens lived a daily life. It kind of stirs you to contemplate how fast we have moved ahead in just the last few centuries from electricity , air travel to mobile phones .

It was not my best vacation in terms of being able to relax with a mind constantly worried for things back home, and so I stll go by the Milton quote

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven" and that is the struggle of my life for the past few years .



To Write Again ?

Its been so very long and Ive been wanting every now and then to sit and write again – may be not the wry humor of office or of the world that were books to me but of listlessness and the dreariness of life and yet I could not bring myself to actually do it. When I went on a vacation , when it was the new year and I just looked back at my blog there were multiple moments and yet a inertia, a hopelessness has taken over me and nothing around helps me get off it. I did not even want to pen a farewell post to Sachin recalling may be some of the most joyous times of my life.

I would have almost forgotten this blog but for the random comments on my most famous post I guess seen by all nostalgic ICSE students remembering-the-roses-and-its-yet-unanswered-question and Caesarean Conspiracies

So many times my thoughts became lines in a post and yet never could get around to actually put the words in.But yet Ive been trapped to have conversations with people and well the more I talk to nice sweet people the more I recalled this quote in my saved notes .

"I don't hate people. I just feel better when they're not around."  Charles Bukowski

And so I thought of getting back to people and yet not having them around I guess in the blog.

Its like the whole humanity seems so lost so miserable or so confused that its this deep wish I feel to see it all over.

May be its just me – despairing over being cornered by life and denied of even hope and yet the more I converse with my dear sympathetic people the more I become averse to humanity ,

their insecurities , their fears, their dogged beliefs in ethics goodness or whatever , the struggle to be good , to be right its all like a mish mash that makes you want to be really blunt . But well ah I am human too !!

So I tag along with all the dear ones and hope  my acerbic thoughts will get the refuge in this blog.

Just looking back so much has changed in the world just since I started blogging  and well truly what wonderful worries I had in my youth huh I think – a great reminder of those as I look at entries in Life_n_all@Work