The poetry of fall

~And there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity
under the heavens.- The Ecclesiastes

The poetry of fall is the barenaked truth of trees; heartfelt
talk stripped of green pleasantries; the poetry of frank confessions and no attempt at concealing warts.
It is the alchemy of sudden change which surprises you even when you
know you should expect it. The warm toasty colours of nostalgia - golden brown honey,
schoolchildren huddled in yellow raincoats, sepia tinted photographs and the burnt amber of intricate mehendi patterns.
A total disregard for boundaries and names - leaves which now look
like earth coloured petals or translucent coin sized slices of the
sun.
You see an orange ribbed leaf against cloudless blue -
the beggars outstretched open palm holding nothing and the whole sky all at once.
And in that moment you become aware - of the passage of time, and the
soundless ,matter of fact, sweeping away of all that appeared
constant.

The Poetry of Non Control

The poetry of non-control

Is the poetry of sitting on a train in a strange city believing
that you are moving in the right direction.
It is the understanding that you can hardly hasten
anything - including the arrival of a much-awaited-for package, the
ripening of mangoes, or your own enlightenment.
The poetry of waking up one day to find in surprise that wild orchids
have bloomed outside the window without your effort.
It is the quiet calm that settles in your chest like a bluebird that,
after hours of restless flapping of wings, sits on the branch of a gulmohar tree when
the rain pours.
When a friend is sharing troubles, it is the poise of your open
mouth.Words rush to tell of how-to’s and fix-it’s but you have instead decided to remain silent and listen.
It is the knowledge that the world, with all its wounds, does not need you to
run out and give it another band-aid as much as it needs your loving
presence.

Healthcare or Health-I-dont-Care ?

Since this has generated some interest on the internet I will tell my story:
I was feeling pretty crummy and had a bad cold , and some of my lab members had it too - so my boss was really nice and insisted I go and see a doc, especially with the Flu-That-Should-Not-Be-Named circulating.
I don't have a car and don't know any doctors in Gainesville so I went to the University Infirmary. Isn't that supposed to be for the greater good for the student community? Instead, they insist on charging me $76 for what turned out to be a 5 minute appointment.
An annoyed lady grudgingly wakes up from her afternoon siesta and asks what I want. She makes me stand and fill out a ton of forms and I am just feeling way too sick by now, I really need to sit down. I try to get to a chair but she stops me and says no, please stand here and fill this up (I really couldn't figure this out!).
The air is filled with hostility, as much as the forms are filled with legalese.
I wait for a while and finally a nurse sees me.
I finally go into a room when she literally turns her back on me and throws questions at me - as cold , harsh and impersonal as it can get. I'm shocked at some of her questions relating to family history- So did your grandfather have cancer? Did he die from it?
I'm sure my pulse races as she measures it, as I try to retain a calm frame of mind with this cross questioning.I actually begin to feel like a felon on trial as this progresses.It all ends with a doc coming in for a couple of nanoseconds who tells me I don't have swine flu.
I decide to not give an eye for an eye and thank everyone on the way out but I take some time to recover from this experience.
What ails the American health care system is not a lack of infrastructure, intelligence, or planning. ...
The system has become so complicated and steeped in legal issues that it is so completely devoid of 'compassion'. In fact, it should be renamed health-i-dont-care.
PS: I wish I did not have to complain, but I hope my med school friends will take a look at this and pause to reflect! Finally, the good news is that I dont have swine flu and thats what matters :)

The Joy of Less

Image : Courtesy stefanoforenza.com

http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/the-joy-of-less/
OK I TOTALLY LOVED this post!!
It says a lot about the lack of mental clutter in the author - the fact that he is able to wield his pen like a violinist and use words sparsely to create feeling in the reader.
Okay, those were a whole lot of unnecessary words, right?
:-) When will I learn! LOL!
:-)
Avan

Spring cleaning my mind

Photo: Courtesy ImageBank

~ "Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear."
- Children of the Mind, by Orson Scott Card

Will the recession actually make you happier?

Economic pundits,please forgive me if I what I have said seems blasphemous. Halt production and consumption and create a further cycle of economic downfall?
But please remember that the earth doesn't have endless resources. Like Gandhi ji once said, 'The world has enough for man's need but it does not have enough to satisfy his greed.'
I recently read the top 50 ways in which to save the planet, by TIME magazine.
I liked the 51st way the best, it went like this : "The chance to buy a carbon offset—in essence, an emissions indulgence—appeals to the environmental sinner in all of us. But there is an older path to reducing our impact on the planet that will feel familar to Evangelical Christians and Buddhists alike. Live simply. Meditate. Consume less. Think more. Get to know your neighbors. Borrow when you need to and lend when asked. E.F. Schumacher praised that philosophy this way in Small Is Beautiful: 'Amazingly small means leading to extraordinarily satisfying results.'"

Can we escape judgment?

Walking down the aisles of the grocery store, I looked for fruits and vegetables at the right stage of ripening.My mind automatically began scanning for the ones without spots or blemishes.
As I was going home it struck me that is impossible to pass through life without some form of judgment or the other.
I remember reading a book -'The Happiness Hypothesis' by the noted psychologist Jonathon Haidt. It actually had an entire chapter devoted to the role of gossip in society as a self-regulatory mechanism.
My broadening experience in the United States over the past two years has been primarily shaped by shedding the judgmental tendencies which is a part of the fiber of Indian society.
Within the middle class lot it is frowned upon to study anything outside the narrow disciplines of science,medicine or engineering. If you are 'unfortunate' enough not to enter these streams, you can redeem yourself with an MBA or Law degree.At the 'right' time you need to get married,to the 'right' person of course, from the same community,chosen by society for you.
I don't want to digress and make this an angry rant- after all this is a place for reflection and not rambling. My question is - can we escape judgment and the habit of judging, or is it actually necessary?
In the States we are a part of a wonderfully egalitarian society which is still unthinkable for people back home.But judgment still lurks in every corner.In the laid back lifestyle of college students, you may not be judged by who your father is but you will still be judged if you refuse to have more than two beers on a Friday night.There are other parameters too - your hairstyle, your labels on your clothes, your nocturnal activities,the number of friends in your Facebook account,the people you spend your time with.
Is judgment an evolutionary instinct, a way of protecting ourselves and the people we love? A child who is left alone for a few minutes is usually instructed not to speak to people who look strange. 'If you need something',I remember my parents saying,' ask a 'nice lady' for help'.
And how about at work, when we need to make decisions all the time?In every day of our life, we need to know which way to move forward when the road forks.
But when judgment creeps in, our shared humanity is slowly edged out.
Reminds me of this verse by Rumi,an answer in itself.

Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing,
there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase
each other
doesn't make any sense.

Rumi