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I have tears streaming from my eyes. I am upset because this world isn't small enough. Why do we aspire to living in different countries across vast oceans? Why can we all not live in one little village, with everyone living a few minutes walk away? Yes we have airplanes to take us places, yes we have video phones to allow better communication, but there is nothing like sitting with your family, sharing a meal or a joke or just sitting there with one person reading a paper, the second sipping tea and the third declaring they can see a cat lounging on a branch from the window and then drifting off into a cat related dialogue.

I know I can always visit and talk over the phone and see them over the camera. A few years back I wanted to see the world and travel. Now, I want to stay at home.

The honeymoon is over

The honeymoon is well and truly over. It was over a long time ago, however I do sometimes wonder if it was ever there.

So many things have been said and so many things have not been done that they make me wonder, why on earth do people get married.

I am writing this possibly because I am in a quandry. What do I want more, being able to do things the way I think is best for concerned parties whilst being objective or follow the heart and let it take me where I might find a momentary holiday. Why momentary? Well, you can only enjoy not doing things for so long. How long can someone stand being the housemaker. Sure there are many things to keep the mind occupied. However it is still daunting to think that I might have to sit at home for a year or more before I get a job I might enjoy. I won't be able to update the facade of things contaminated without asking for permission, it is not neutral ground, as someone quit clearly stated, it is their turf.

On an offshoot, some people just don't understand which adjectives actually describe them. Practical, I don't think so. More like, unnecessarily, a clean freak. Caring, yeah right. Easy going, I certainly don't think so. And worst of all, nice. Do not call yourself nice, because you probably aren't nice if you feel the need to say that about yourself.

Do I care enough to lose what I have? People say, you either marry for love, money or something which will help you make a better life.

Get real, love doesn't give you anything, it is a momentary fuzzy feeling that comes and goes. For me the disappearance of that feeling was catalysed by the fact that some conspired to try and make me live like a fool. Too bad that didn't work out. I still get so angry when I think about it.

Anywho, I landed back on lovely earth pretty quickly and found myself wondering what the hell have I got myself into. I am trying to get to the root cause, it is this an ego issue, monetary issue or a feasibility issue?

So, where does the honeymoon come into all of this. Well, I am not thinking w.r.t. love anymore.

A sign of things to come

The person laughed when I declared that my blog was called 'The cosmos is within me and I am within it' and called it cheesy. Well call it what you like, I enjoy writing and I feel the title fits in with what I wish to convey.

Why was this a sign of things to come? Being laughed at first and then being taken seriously is quite the norm now. Ha ha, you really think that; oh by the way do you know (with the original supposedly laughable statement being repeated as fact). I don't care really, afterall I shall do what I get joy out of. But one does wonder, whether the other person understands the depths and the thought process behind certain actions and way of thinking. Perhaps, it is too taxing to go into detail and think about the rationale of a thought.

I suppose I should feel pleased about the fact that I bring a feeling of not having to apply yourself too much, or that one does not need to make the effort. But then again, why should it be such an effort? I suppose that is a sign of taking things for granted. When you have something, you don't clean it as much or you don't give it much thought thinking that it is with you and it is going nowhere. However, you might be guilty of allowing it to degrade or not letting it glow in its glory or sharing something that it is good at.

I shall keep an open mind. If I am laughed at, so be it, it is you who shall be missing out.

Note to self

Change the day you were born, so that it doesn't pain you too much to think that after you are called, 15 days later, within the same month, the same phonecall is made, but to someone else.

Absurd, well, so be it.

Tears

Why do you cry?

Because you are happy?
or are you sad?

Did someone make you see sense?
or did someone not let you see the mess?

Are you overjoyed by the accomplishments?
Or by the transformation?

You hardly cried before; now you shed tears everyday.
For multiple reasons, how things have changed, how life has shifted.

Anything is possible

Anything is possible. And never say never. Two synonymous statements.

Anything is possible. Fulfilling a dream of being successful in the world of finance; be able to help society by working with children; finding someone who ticks all the right boxes.

You can do what you want and get what you want, but you have to work hard and well. Being a hard worker doesn't quite do the job, its about how smart you can work too; how resourceful you can be, apply fore and hindsight to increase your chances of success whilst decreasing the time it takes to attain it.

People have various ways of attaining what they wish for. Integrity and ambition are perhaps the two aspects that can drive one to achieve ones goals. You don't have to be 'intelligent', as long as common sense prevails, one can use the resources around you to work with you and for you. Intelligence is such a subjective term. What is intelligence, having the ability to score well in IQ tests or the ability to take in information, process it such that a valuable result is produced?

There is a flip side of the 'anything is possible; too. For the pessimist too, anything is possible, it is possible that you will fail, lose everything you have and not recover or not be able to support the people you need to. There is no limit to the direction in which you can take 'anything is possible'.

You can go up and reach a ceiling; you can go down and hit the bottom or you can go side ways and hit a wall.

Or, you can go up and reach the stars, you can go down and hit the sea bed or travel laterally and never find an obstacle.

Perception, how you percieve a situation has a great impact on the process, the result and its after effects.

Are you born with how you percieve things, or can you be taught to look at the world a certain way? I think you are born with a certain slant with which one sees the world, however I do believe that with the right mindset and environment, the human brain is wired to relearn many things and build a new set of schemas.

Treat the mind gently, and it is possible to teach yourself anything.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder

Roughly 5456 miles, the north Atlantic ocean separating the two land masses.

Modern technology allows you to speak and see your loved ones like never before. You can show off the trousers that you bought, you can advise the man on the colour of their tie or tell them off if their room is untidy.

It is such a comfort to hear their voice and see them smile, frown or get angry. However, nothing can replace having someone in front of you; peck them on the cheek or pinch them on their arm.
It's the small things that you miss when apart; waking someone up in the morning, hearing the other person drink tea or munch on a snack, hear them sleep, look them in the eye when you tell them something and anticipate a reaction or have them help you choose between two types of potatoes.

The usual and mundane, when absent, become the most missed.

The board of life

At certain moments in life
A realisation occurs,
that some of us are the pieces on a chess board

One might mistakenly assume that you walk in the direction you choose,
Or that you think what you wish to think.

People around you make their moves and play upon their strategy,
and you are part of it.

You can break free and do what is done unto you,
or you can break free and never look back.

Tied down by the pain of being a pawn, that I cannot be.
Thought I was the queen, oh don't be silly.
I just fell into place, filled a space; isn't that what life is all about?
Then you find out that you were not the best piece and perhaps never meant to be.

The heart and mind shatter, with a scream stuck inside you.
A stream of tears roll down your face, too exhausted to wipe them away.
You wake up at night, wondering if the blow was real.
The pain will follow; you are too numb to feel.

I bring it upon myself perhaps, my naivety or simplicity.

I say to myself 'chin up', but with anger and anguish in mind.

A new breeze

Another year is coming to a close and I feel it is time to recount the feelings, actions and events of the past year. Perhaps I should make this a yearly ritual; pen things down for future reference and learning.

It has been more than a year since I started working at a place that I enjoy. I have met numerous people along the way; been to different countries and experienced their way of life and thinking which is always refreshing.

Parallel to work life, my personal life has taken a turn. Initially full of high emotion, at times draining along with a tug of words, it was quite a whirlwind. Looking back it is all so surreal. I still have to pinch myself, and fully appreciate what I have.

I have been angry, I have laughed and cried. I was hostile, unflinching and ruthless; then I softened, as I thought it is my own loss if I do not open up and go against my own ethos of being open-minded. That facade, which only the near and dear saw, I had to release, to show that I can be friendly, flexible and loving. I however did not have to make much effort opening up, as the warmth and humour of a lovely soul helped elicit that side of me.

Two minds meet and combine to form a singular, symbiotic unit. Here, two families met, and formed a bond that stemmed from the time and affection put in by all individuals.

For the first time, I shall be spending New years eve away from parents and siblings. Yes it is just another day, which because of the Gregorian calendar, signifies the onset of the new year. But it is significant for me. I admit I am slightly delicate and I see things with a sensitive slant.

I am more than happy and grateful. I have a mental smile that stretches from ear to ear.

It has been an eventful year. And I look forward to many many more, sharing every moment with the new breeze in my life.

Music

Today I heard the music of a movie of a Chinese fairy tale called Butterfly Lovers. It was marvellous. It was an instrumental combination of traditional Chinese instruments and the violin. The story of the Butterfly Lovers is rather touching. The story is about this boy who falls in love with a girl, who is from a very rich family. The boy wishes to marry her, however, the girl’s father has already lined someone from a higher standing for her marriage. The two try to stay together but unfortunately the father does not let this relationship carry forward.

The man is so heartbroken by this that he weeps to his death. His childhood sweetheart sits next to his coffin and weeps too. Suddenly by some fairy magic, the coffin opens and both turn into butterflies and are together forever.

I am not very good at telling touchy stories, but when I was told it, it was lovely.

On further discussions about music, I found someone who agrees with what I have thought for quite a while; music without words is far more amazing than with words. Does one not need more skill to convey a message or emotion via the sound of instruments alone?

On that note, I shall retire to my inner self, with the aid of a cup of golden flower tea.

Contemplation

I have been thinking recently, I wish I were ten. The world is so much better, you can run around, be completely unassuming, dream, not think too far ahead, not have mundane things to worry about. When you are 10 you want to be all grown up, drive a car, have a squiggly signature, talk about things as grown ups do and be able to stand and eat at parties, with a plate in one hand and a fork/spoon in the other.

Life moves on and you grow up. You take things in your stride. You progress from one stage to another, always (or try to) keeping where you want to be, whom you care about in the foreground. The scene changes; people you knew for years fade away, new people and ideas take root. With this newness, I feel sometimes the old moves and becomes distant. I don't like that.

I am fearful of changes in certain aspects of life. I do not wish that certain relationships should suffer or become different. I want them to become stronger as time goes by. I shall do my best to keep things that way. I am too attached some might say. Well so be it. I am. Only because of the care, affection and support that has been used to nurture who I have become.

The month of Julius.

I haven't written anything for the past two months so thought I should pen something down.

I have been quite preoccupied with many things. Work, people and life.

Getting things in order at work, compiling reports, creating software models and planning work for the year ahead take up ample time.

I pay attention to people because we are all social beings and require a social network to function professionaly and personally. So I listen and speak.

Life is moving along with new paths coming into view. There are a few new people in my life whom I care about as I care for my nuclear family, i.e. substantially. I could write a lot more, paragraphs on end about how I feel, but I won't, yet.

So for now, from the south east of Asia, that is all.

Nature

I recently scrapped skin off my thumb knuckle while grating cheese for pasta. It stung at first and I could see the bone. The cut was about 5 mm long. Why am I writing about getting scrapped? Well, after washing the cut, I saw how blood oozed out and covered up the wound. Then it coagulated and formed a protective cover. I was just awestruck by the way we work. Not that I haven’t seen this behaviour before, but I guess when you live on your own, you pay more attention and the fact that nobody is around to make a big fuss about it, as parents and siblings usually do.

It’s interesting to see tangible and involuntary activity. The speed with which the sensors send signals to the brain, the spontaneous reaction of the brain to a problem, the implementation of a certain plan to fix the problem and continuous checking of progress or healing, all done quietly within the confines of our bodies.

We can be so sensitive and yet so strong. This juxtaposition always makes me smile. Marvellous.

People

We can be quite mean, uncaring, spiteful, uncivil, ignorant and unkind. We can let small things get in the way of being good friends and being happy. We stew over actions and statements, thinking and re-thinking, ‘why did they do this, what did they mean?’

Some might isolate a person just because they don’t like them. Or perhaps they feel jealous or find them annoying or have nothing in common. I wish people were more forgiving or gave people the benefit of doubt. It’s natural to be doubtful and judgmental. But those doubts and snap judgments should not cloud ones ability to take in the character of an individual and get to know them better.

Well if you still can’t stand them, don’t just blank them and not communicate. Be civil.

Everyone has the power to accommodate; you don’t have to change anything about yourself to be accommodating. It just involves having a big mind and a big heart.

Rigidity

People, they can be so rigid and fixed in their ways. We only live once, so why be so uncaring and judgemental. Why pigeon hole people. Why get fixed with one notion and repeat that over and over again. I guess its human nature to do so. It’s easy to follow one idea. It’s easier to process information if we box people and experiences. But then don’t let those boxed thoughts cloud your intake of new information. What is the point of gaining new knowledge if you don’t look at it with an unbiased and clear perspective?

I myself am guilty of stereotyping, but I would like to think that I give things a second chance or for that matter a third chance. I keep an open mind. I try and absorb life around me with minimum bias and preconceptions.

As Arthur C. Clarke stated ‘the only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible’. A questioning and inquisitive mind can help do that. How do you induce a questioning and inquisitive mind? Keep rigidity at bay.

My Unit

My siblings they stress me and de-stress me.
My parents tell me off and pet me.
My family, they make me laugh, they make me think.
They feed me and teach me.
They annoy me and I annoy them.
I will never be able to repay them for all that they do.
I am grateful to them for who they are.
We have our quarrels, we say things we shouldn’t.
But they are still mine and only mine.
My unit, always in my heart and in my mind.

Greatness

In the past centuries, great people have lived and died. Gandhi, Einstein, Darwin and Confucius are some of the many great people that influenced the lives of so many around them.

The people I mentioned above had an impact on the thought processes of peoples. And as time passes and their existence becomes a distant memory, their ideals and actions will either become stronger or fade away. Time makes them great. Reflection of what they did and said makes them great.

Greatness is relative though. For many, parents are great, friends are great, pets, poets, scientists, philosophers or doctors are great. It just depends on the experiences and associations one has.

How is greatness achieved? As William Shakespeares ‘Twelfth Night’ proclaims, ‘Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.’

And of course, with greatness comes responsibility.

The Jungle and Its Trees

In our lives we occupy ourselves with small thought that can make the ‘whole’ picture blurry. We see trees, shrubs, fruits, flowers, insects and animals. We forget that they all play a part in the ecosystem of a jungle (or forest, whichever you prefer).

To survive, we have to consider the small threads in life; stringing them together results in a complex mesh which stretches, shears, tears and heals. For some the mesh becomes stronger and bigger as they progress in life. For others, as the years go by, the mesh starts to unravel and disintegrates into its individual strings that get strewn around by the wind. The opposite is also true, where a dishevelled and grimy blanket of life brings itself together, brushes aside the creases and flutters confidently in the breeze.

It is important to consider all components of a jungle and be considerate of how they are intertwined and dependent upon each other. It is also important to stand on top of a hill and observe the forest as an entity itself.

A short story

‘Gosh, moving house is tedious, whichever country you live in. We have now bought a new house after one and a half years of being in this country. With the money used to buy the new house one could design an enormous villa back home. The new house here has good views, not as big a garden as the current one though. It has got good bus services and a railway station a few miles from there. It has got shops near by, not a mile away like here. I’ll get used to it all. I was the one who started it anyway. I begged my parents to get a new house. And its nice to get a change regularly, brings forth new challenges. Stagnation is no good, leads to dementia in my view. Anyway, I’m going to like it there.’ These were the thoughts running through Anita’s head when she was making last minute checks on the packing. There wasn’t much to move, a few pieces of furniture, a few suitcases and boxes full of knick-knacks. They used to need two medium trucks (not the big juggernauts) back home when they would move; here they need a big van and their car. Anita’s a junkie, she collects stuff. Not junk, but she’ll keep all her homework, all the question papers she’d get from her teachers, things she’d use in her projects and models and anything she found interesting. Her mother calls her a junkie and she knows it too. When she was around 10 years old, she would collect bagfulls of stones that would look shiny or smooth or weird. Later she moved onto bringing home bagfulls of mica (shiny sand used to insulate electrical appliances) which she found near the school playground. It's hilarious to think how her mother would try not to say 'oh for goodness sake, not another sackfull of sand in the house!'

‘There’s the van, papa’s here. Here we go.’ Anita went downstairs to open the door. She had been supervising the vacuuming her sister was doing. Not nice to leave the house dusty. ‘Ok then big, large chunky things at the back and smaller stuff at the front, so lets start with the bed’. Following her father’s instructions, she went upstairs to get ready to help her dad carry the bed down. ‘Right, you can take the computer in the car; don’t carry the heavy stuff though’ her father told her. The van driver was going to help her dad carry the bed. ‘Ok, I’m going to take the computer things one by one to the car, you can make a queue of the stuff here, I won’t have to come all the way then’, Anita told her sis.

After the computer, Anita helped with the desks, lamps, suitcases and other stuff that was left. Her sister was busy with the bags of books, papers and other things she could manage. ‘That’s it, let me just have a last look and check that nothing has been left behind’, Anita thought to herself. She had a habit of double checking things. When younger, after picnics she would check the surroundings to see if anything had been left behind and usually she’d come back to the car with either one of her siblings shoes or a toy. The drawers were empty, the cupboards were bare and the window sills were naked. Nothing was left. She ran down and told her dad everything was out. ‘Good lets go then, who has the key?’ Anita got a key ring out from her jeans pocket with two keys. She gave them to her dad. Anita, her sister and her dad got in the car and the van driver got ready to follow them.

It wasn’t a long journey, about twenty minutes. Anita’s mother and brother were already at the new house. They were dropped by her dad before he went to get the van. The van driver opened the back of the van and both siblings started to load themselves with whatever they could. Anita’s mother was directing where the stuff was to be put to make organising later easy. The computers were Anita’s responsibility, so she got the car keys from her father and started to get things out one by one. First all the wires, then the lighter peripherals, then the rest. Her mother directed her to take everything upstairs. After everything was in the house, father paid the driver and everyone just slumped into chairs, sofas or just laid themselves on the floor.

Everyone re-hydrated themselves. It had been a hot day. But this heat was nothing compared to what it would be like at this time of year back home. Anita was all hyped up to get things assembled but her parents told her to calm down and take things slowly. She was told the same thing when carrying stuff from the old house to the van and from the van to the new house. She’s the time conserving type. Her father told her to take slow steps, no point rushing, risking dropping things and getting hurt. ‘And the next day you’d be aching all over’. Good advice, Anita had to remind herself of it ever so often.

As night fell, the kids started grumbling about their grumbling stomachs. They wanted noodles and their mother did made just that. Quick to prepare and always delicious, the kids loved them, especially without the peas and carrots and capsicum.

Bed time was eagerly welcomed by everyone. The parents prepared their bed and then the kids’. Their mother put down some bed sheets and 3 camp mattresses. The kids’ beds were left in the previous house; new beds had been ordered for them. The kids didn’t mind sleeping on the floor, they liked a bit of disruption to their usual sleeping habits. The disruption lasted for about a fortnight until their new beds arrived.

Next morning they woke up, not quite able to find the bathroom or whatever they were looking for. Half asleep they almost fell down the stairs looking for the bathroom or bump into walls looking for the other rooms. After breakfast they all told each other about how they got confused looking for things. Anita went on to say it was because of pro active interference, old data interfering with the registry of new data. This wasn’t showing off, she likes to use a defined term for things, it reduces the amount that needs to be said if the meaning of the word is known.

The next few days went by, assembling the furniture and buying things for the house. The beds were delivered. Everyone went out shopping for the bedding to match the rooms’ colour scheme. A new desk was bought for the computer, lamps for the kids’ desks. Slowly the new house was looking like home. It was the summer holidays so everyone helped in getting the house in order. The garden was being cleared too. New plants, manure, pots, seeds, and a garden tools were bought. Everyone was settling in and pro active interference was not much of a problem. On the weekends the whole family would go out, practice their tennis serves, back hand and fore hand strokes. A bit of cricket or football, skating or a stroll along the Thames was all very relaxing after all the assembling and re-assembling in the house. Nobody took it as a hassle; it was fun doing things together.

School and college preparations were going to start soon. Feet grew out of shoes, hands were too long for shirts and trousers were too tight. Pens, pencils, files were to be bought and holiday homework had to be put in order. Mum was making the kids sleep on time at night, getting the kids used to waking up early. It was still fine weather, so getting up in the morning was no problem. This was an important year for Anita, she was to decide which course she wanted to do and which university she wanted to do it from. She loved psychology but she also loved anything to do with aircrafts.

Back in college Anita caught up on things with her good friend Bell. She was happy just having one good friend who was very similar to her in terms of ideologies.

Anita always thought she would never be able to make friends here. Not because she was weird or anything, there were loads of weirdo’s around, but because she did not know if she’d find someone with whom she could share ideas and talk without any hesitation. Anita’s other friends (she’d regard them as situational friends), would ask her which school Anita and Bell went to because they got along so well. It seemed as if they had known each other since primary school. If something needed to be said sometimes a glance between them would be enough and if it was about something hilarious, they’d burst into laughter without saying anything. One could argue, what if they were laughing at different things? Well, they would sometimes double check that they were thinking of the same thing and most of the time they were. Bell helped Anita settle into life in this new country to some extent. Bell saw how children here behaved and was many a times shocked by what she saw. ‘Kids here are so disrespectful, there seems to be a distance between parents and their offspring. And some kids are made to pay rent after a certain age; not all kids are asked to pay but the idea of some parents asking for rent from their children is absurd. They are treated like any other adult. And some children treat their parents like any other adult. Generally speaking there is no respect here for elder people, be it teachers, parents or people walking on the streets’. One could say Anita suffered from a bit of acculturative stress. She knew it too. When having discussions with her friend she’d suggest that it was a bit difficult for her to comprehend how the society here worked. Both shared the same points of view. Kids are disrespectful and parents just let go. And the other thing they both thought was absurd was the fact that teachers were not allowed to be quite strict with children. What do the teachers do with unruly kids? No wonder this society is breaking down. One can say that’s being a behaviourist, stamping out bad behaviour. Well, yes it is. There has to be firmness, not just in verbal terms but in terms of action too.

Anita and Bell could go on talking about issues like that if there were no lectures to break it all up. They enjoyed their lessons and they were a treat to teach. Quiet in class, always gave in homework on time, well mannered, everything a teacher could dream for in a student. They were mischievous, but they knew their limits. They enjoyed learning and their teachers enjoyed teaching them.

The two friends would help each other with homework or presentations. Help each other revise for tests even if the subject was like Japanese to the other. They’d share notes, help each other with any sort of problem. They never really fought, maybe sometimes had heated discussions on some subject, but they would never stop talking to each other if their views didn’t match. They understood that the other person has a different point of view to things. ‘Having completely compatible friends would be boring. It’s good to have a balance of things we agree on and things we don’t. It’s nice to have healthy arguments or debates on certain subjects and on many issues we corroborate each others views. We learn a lot from each others different points too, broadens the thinking’, they’d say.

Bell had many friends from school, just like Anita. But all of Anita’s school friends were back home. ‘You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. My school friends were extremes, some were girly, some just dull. You’re a blend of everything,’ Bell would declare to Anita. They were both mixtures of all sorts of traits.

As the new year was drawing near, Anita had to decide between a psychology course or an aeronautics one. At first she had filled her university application form with psychology courses. She had even handed it in to her tutor. Then she thought about the ease with which one could get employed being a graduate in psychology. One could go into teaching but that was something she didn’t want to do. She could specialise and become a therapist. All this didn’t sound very solid to her. So she decided to take on an aeronautics course. She sat down with her parents to discuss which university and course would be best. Anita wasn’t sure if the universities would take her because she was not doing physics. But she did get interviews from all her chosen universities. Anita’s first choice university was where both her and Bell wanted to go. When the time came she sent off the forms letting the authorities know which university she wanted to go to and what her second choice was. Now, all that was needed was loads of revision and preparation for exams. When Anita was six, she had a plaque on her desk saying ‘if you fail to prepare, then prepare to fail.’ She didn’t have the plaque with her physically but she had it in her head. So she set out to prepare.

As summer came the exams got closer and closer. Anita and her friend stopped attending lessons and stayed at home. Anita’s siblings dared make any noise because they knew how angry that would make her. She kept loads of snacks near her desk. Sometimes her mum would bring her dinner to her in the bedroom if she was very much immersed in a maths question or if she was deciphering the hexadecimal code for something.

Exams were round the corner. She started to reduce the revision and started light reading. The exams came and went and it was a wonderful feeling to be free after a lot of hard work. Her parents had decided that everyone would go on holiday. And the place where they were going was what excited everyone. The flights were booked, packing was underway and everyone had a hop in their stride. Nobody could sleep the day before the flight, but Anita made sure she slept well because she would need to co-ordinate a lot of things in the morning. They booked a taxi in the morning and like all cabbies he was dot on time. The house had been cleaned from top to bottom a few days before so that when they came back the house would be spotless.

Anita’s grandfather was asked if he could come and water the plants regularly and he agreed. Everyone had put in a lot of effort in the garden and they were not going to let all the Fuchsia’s, Dahlias, Gladiolas and the rest dry up.

With everything settled they sat themselves down in the taxi with the luggage and were off. They checked in and were now waiting to pass through security. After that they browsed through the duty free shops and then made their way to the gates. The three kids sat near the windows to get a good view of the runway and of the planes being re-fuelled, loaded with luggage or just taxiing. The airline staff announced that families with children should make their way to the plane and so they did. On the way they picked up a few magazines and newspapers to help them pass the time on the plane.

The flight was fun. They saw flames coming from the oil rigs. They also saw other aircrafts flying. It’s altogether a different experience seeing another aircraft in the air when flying. They would sleep, read or just sit there looking out of the window. On landing, they were informed of the weather conditions. It was hot. But it was early morning so they knew it wouldn’t be too hot. They got there bags from the overhead compartments and made their way through. Many parts of the airport had been rebuilt. They passed through immigration, got their luggage and made their way to the exit. It wasn’t dark outside, it was hazy with clouds but they weren’t thick enough to cause precipitation. Weather wise it was quite pleasant. Everyone had been preparing themselves psychologically to be greeted by a wave of heat, as one feels when opening a pre-heated oven.

The family got hold of a taxi, two to be precise, and made their way to the bungalows they had rented out. On the way Anita was in deep thought, thinking about everything that had happened to her and others around her in the past two years. ‘I’m back home, I’ve really missed this place. The smell of everything is so beautiful. The sights and sounds are so pleasing to the eyes and ears’, she thought. She was in tears, controlled tears. She didn’t want anyone to see that she was crying. She remembered the nights she would just sit and tears would roll down her cheeks, thinking of all the things she had left behind. One could say, well if there is so much pain, get rid of the factor that causes it. The factor was staying away from home. Anita knew that moving to her new home was good and as she would say herself it is good to move to different places. ‘The pain would pass, I’ll understand’ she thought. She did understand but she just missed things. A mixture of emotions was flowing through her mind. She couldn’t put the feelings into words and she didn’t try. She watched the sun rise as the taxi made its way through the city; every street evoking a memory.

- Written on 20th March 2003

Silence

I like the sound of silence. I mean I like the sound of the word ‘silence’. You can’t hear silence per se, however silence can be measured i.e. not picking up certain waves audible to the human ear is a measure of silence, making it tangible. Hence you can ‘hear’ silence.

Well, there isn’t enough of it around. There is always some kind of noise in the background, though I must say, at the moment I can hear nothing but the intermittent sound of my computer‘s hard disk trying to locate information which I didn’t ask for.

At night when darkness blankets the sky, its companion quietness doesn’t always make an appearance. Natural and man made sound affects fill the air. Barks of a fox and the whipping of air by helicopter rotors are just two examples. Foxes, now that is an animal I could write a whole paragraph on, but then again I’m sure Sir David Attenborough has narrated a whole series of programs on this weird and at times annoying creature.

Back to where we were. I think at times, some people surround themselves by sounds, be it music, the TV, friends chatting away etc. because they are afraid to be left alone with their thoughts. That isn’t always the case, but it does happen. Silence can bring thoughts and memories, which one might wish to suppress, to the fore. But then again, silence can also induce happy thoughts and memories. It just depends on the state of mind one is in. Of course, sounds too provide cues to certain things and can result in a chain of ideas.

It is nice to just sit in silence and let your mind wander. The brain always finds ways of keeping itself occupied, being such a marvellous piece of organic engineering. Is it ever quiet? When the brain is deprived of oxygen for quite a while, yes, otherwise I think not.

It is amazing to think, that even when there is silence all around, there is so much happening and so much can be said without making a sound.