-| partnership |-

 -| livelihood  |- 

-|  black |-

-|  black |-

Absence of all colour is colour black!

When people speak of opposites, it is usually in terms of black and white. Black, and its opposite white, represents polarities. Black absorbs all aspects of light. While white reveals, black conceals. It has come to mean hidden, fearful or bad experience. It is linked to the unknown or the unseen.

In times of fear and uncertainty black contains the energy of the threatening unknown. 

Do we associate black as a positive colour? Maybe.. maybe not. But in a positive state, black is a restful emptiness into which anything may emerge and disappear once again. It is also mysterious, providing a sense of potential and possibility.

Like it or hate it but without black, no colour has depth. But if you mix black with everything, suddenly there is shadow – no, not just shadow but fullness. You have to be willing to mix black into your palette if you want to create something that’s real

-| Transition |-

of spaces and scales

My two friends and I went on a 10 day vacation to north Rajasthan – with an aim to cover at least 3 major spots and its surrounding areas. The trip was all planned and our entire luggage packed.  I had the most baggage – no pun intended – with me! Come on!!  I am a Gujju who loves food and who tends to have a far-sight about travel related food issues. There are many what-ifs to keep in mind– what if the airplane is not on schedule and the airport doesn't have ‘good, stomach filling’ food? What if the trains are running late and you get hungry? What if the breakfast is not on time and you want to ruminate on something? What if you stay up with friends all night and feel like gorging?

So, returning to my trip, with as much food packed as humanely possible, we start. Needless to say, catching up with A and Y was the most rejuvenating thing in months. Our love for each other was revealed by yells of suggestions, by arguments over the to-do lists of the trip and of course cracking silly jokes!

Our first destination was Jaipur. Little did we know or anticipate the crowds of the city. The day being a Saturday didn’t help much either. The throng was similar to what Dadar station is on the weekends – full of people trying to be somewhere, yet manageable since the daily goers are not a part of this. But well, we were not so pleased about it. We didn't leave one crowd to merge into other!?!?!

Jaipur and the sites it had to offer was beautiful – with only one negative – too many people.

Our next stop was Jodhpur and we had the chance cut across the heart of the city at 4.30 in the morning. It was cold and empty. A fact which none of us were sorry about. I think the best way to gauge and feel a place is to reveal in its mornings as well – to see how it transforms from night to day, from inactivity to activity. Thus started our second step of transition – space –wise.

The Mehrangarh fort’s grandeur was breathtaking. What also has to be noted was the fact that it was restored and maintained properly – no patchwork please!

We then headed to Jaiselmer and had an amazing opportunity to watch the sun-rise from the top of the fort ramparts. And this was utter ecstasy! The sleeping city at the foot and desert stretched till our eyes could see. The various changing hues in the sky were a balm to the heart. Like the colours in the sky – the city is full of colours.

The next to-do on the list was a day and night in the desert. And it was the most valued item on the list – atleast for me – I know I am going to cherish it for years to come. With every kilometer we covered in the jeep, we were leaving behind ‘civilization’.  It wasn’t exactly back to the Stone Age – but there was no one around. You could hear silence. It was comforting and eye-opening that no matter what you do, how many footprints you leave, you leave behind not much. Maybe an impression, few questions but nothing beyond that . Which in itself is something …..and nothing.

I also understood the meaning of starlit sky – and fell in love all over again!

We returned to Jaipur before heading back to our respective cities. And I was grateful for that transition as well.

I have always viewed cites within different states on some sort of equal footing. But every now and then, I stumble across a fact that changes my sense of context, connecting two parts of the worlds with an understanding of scale we normally lack. While some cities might dominate their own states, they are not all equal, but our geographical blinders sometimes prevent us from recognizing this.  So I am not concerned that my city seems somewhat ordinary today after my journey. Mediocrity is only mediocrity in comparison to those immediately around you!

-| confidence |-



My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep. The more I give to thee
The more I have, for both are infinite.
- Shakespeare 


The confidence in yourself  is valuable, if not an indispensable quality.

-| genius |- 

Genius differs from talent not by the amount of original thoughts, but by making the latter fertile and by positioning them properly, in other words, by integrating everything into a whole, whereas talent produces only fragments, no matter how beautiful.

 - Franz Grillparzer, Austrian author 

Honestly speaking, till date there have been so many times when I have confused the two... I knew its literal meaning but often times didn’t use the word appropriately and after reading this I don’t think I’ll ever make that mistake again..... 

I have been recently reading about the semantics of words and related stuff...it’s very interesting and absorbing ... all these things are so intertwined with so many aspects of day to day life - that i would have never thought about it twice ... I also think that at times words are so slippery ... so unreliable...  one wrong word and things can go for a toss.. but then it is also important that the opposite person knows the word and its true meaning ... for example, when I was in school it never made a difference if one called me 'talented' or 'genius' ... It meant one and the same to me... I know better now... 

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

-|   X   |-

I came upon my old Mathematics notebook and two things struck me –  one, I used to write in ink-pen and two, the book was filled with variables like x, y and z. Although the most recurring alphabet was X – the elusive X

All of us remember x — that curious creature with such an amazingly bad sense of direction and memory that it either kept getting lost or kept forgetting who it was. In geometry it would crop up frequently, either moodily throwing stones while perched atop the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle or trapped inside a circle trying to get the right angle on things despite being uncomfortably wedged between two sharp lines. 

In algebra it was practically everywhere, philosophically wondering about its purpose in life while being jostled by an army of numbers and mathematical symbols who seemed impatient to straighten it out. Occasionally it would fall in with a questionable bunch of characters — namely, w, y and z — which were equally directionless and were suspected of blowing their pocket money on junk food and fizzy drinks. 

Looking back at my school years I realize that, back then, I never had any sympathy for x. I lost count of the number of times I was asked to extricate it from difficult situations. No sooner would I help it surmount one crisis than it would dash off to embrace another one. I would often lose my temper and threaten to abandon it. I think I was cruel in my scorn for unresolved issues. At that age every question has an answer which can be found at the back of the textbook (or in the class topper`s completed homework). I had an unspoken, complacent confidence that things will work out for the best.

Life, itself, appeared to be a rather unwieldy equation, littered with variables, but one with a solution nevertheless. Where, in this naively structured view of an astonishingly chaotic universe, was there a place for the temperamental, unsure x? 

It is only now, with the benefit of hindsight, that I realize what it was going through. Growing up and facing the real world is messy business. Things don`t always work out in your favour, not everyone you meet is likely to agree with everything you say, you can`t choose your colleagues or your bosses, and you don`t always get 100% in whatever you do. The truth is that we just try to muddle through life as best as we can with the help of our family, friends and partners. But here`s the thing — life eventually does work out sooner or later, even if not in the way we expected. 

But there are inescapable periods in each of our lives when we struggle to make sense of the world around us and wonder about our purpose. We question ourselves on the kind of people we are slowly becoming and ask ourselves whether this is what we wanted. My guess is that x was going through the same phase. 

So x, buddy, wherever you are I want to tell you I have finally understood why you felt so lost and confused. But take heart because the schoolgirl faith isn`t misplaced either — life is a beautiful, complex equation which solves itself in mysterious ways. But yes, I confess that I wish we both could travel back to the time when I had the answer to your every problem at the back of a book.

PS: In algebra, the letter 'x' is often used to represent an unknown quantity or variable. Similarly, in English, x represents the unknown, as in X-rays, which baffled their discoverer, and Malcolm X, who chose the symbol to represent the forgotten name of his African ancestors.