88.Change is good!

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”  Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Morte d’Arthur.

One of my friends used to always tell me, “Change is the only thing which is constant.” An old adage oft repeated when it necessitates us.

My cousin and I used to be the best of buddies; eating out, shopping, watching movies together, gossiping and what not. In short, we spent most of our day together in spite of the fact that she also had to go to work. But out of the blue, she says she has changed. Changed for what or whom and why?  She no longer calls me in the previous frequency of three calls a day. I am thoroughly confused. Can people change at a rate faster than light can travel or the mind?

Yes, changed I have too, over the years. But the change has been for me; me alone and not for anyone else. The competition has never been with anyone else but me. I have competed with my old self to make a brand new me every morning.

A decade back, I would not have been the same person that I am right now. I have grown, mellowed, become more tolerant and what not. But the passion and love that I remember I had as a little girl has stayed with me ever since. Rather, I have become far more passionate and loving than before. And I still love the people I have loved along the way. Personally, I feel excellent about it!

Why should we change for the people who love us? Can we not keep that one thing constant; to love? Yes, change is good but I feel that we should change only ourselves to become even more loving than before. The change should be within ourselves, since we know we can never change anyone or anything. Then the famous quote, “Change is the only thing which is constant” will still hold water. At least love should be constant and consistent.

(I tried on a western ensemble with Indian jewelry and sandals for the Northeast Writers' Forum Meeting in the evening. I loved this change I tried!)

87.HAPPINESS UNBOUNDED

When I turned vegetarian, my inquisitive friends had a 1001 questions; “Why are you turning into a veggie?” “Yuck, how will you survive?” “I am sure once an occasion arrives, you will turn into a non-veg again?” “What is the big deal?”

Okay. So I have turned into a vegetarian. It just took me a second to decide about this commitment I have made for a life-time. Though it has just been over two months since I have picked up the habit, it hasn’t really taken me long at all to live with it. Since my decision, I have attended endless number of meetings, seminars, workshops where I have happily sat alongside colleagues and friends who preferred a non-veg meal during lunch. I have looked at their food and asked myself if I feel any greed pangs for the food they are eating. Not at all!

I have remained committed to this habit and I know deep inside that I will be able to carry this forward, no matter how mouth-watering a non-veg dish might look!

Commitment is the new high! To be committed to something or someone and be absolutely, deliriously passionate about it is the hip thing. I am committed to the world, my country, my state, my city and so much more!

Krishna came into my life when I was a kid of four years and I had to enact a role on stage back in my school days. He has stayed with me all throughout my life. I have remained committed to Him and that must be one of the reasons why I have some insanely composed passionate poems for Him. When someone asked me, “Why Krishna?” I didn’t have an answer, more so because I don’t have a reason for my love and commitment to Him. Should I?

When we love someone, do we need a reason for it? When I say I love Krishna, I have never sought a reason for this deep passionate commitment. Nothing can deter me from this love for Him. Feverishly passionate that I am, I have never really sought an answer for love. I have argued endless number of times that love has no reasons. Loving for a reason cannot be love and I stand committed to this statement for life.

I have composed endless number of poems for Him. And in every poem, my love for Him gets that much more profound. So, when I am asked, “How did you meet Krishna?” I tell them, “I have met Him in all my past lives and now I meet Him every day, everywhere and in everything. I am devoted in my love for Him!”

This commitment of belonging to Him and carrying His work forward gives me happiness divine......

My Love,

My Lord,

I wish You knew

How much

I love You

From the minute

I met You,

To this moment on,

I have loved You

And You only.

But shun me…?

You did

For a figment.

Oft You look

Distant,

Like a dream,

A Mirage

Knowing not

That this dream

Would one day

Shatter

To pain me

Endlessly,

But Lord, God,

To bear this pain

For You,

Is also bliss.

For I have loved

You

And You only.

You are the reason

I am alive,

Alive with You,

My Krishna,

My God…!

86. Love and Hate

“Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves, without any insistence that they satisfy you”. Wayne Dyer.

Tirus, my 6 year old sonny boy tells me every day that he loves me like the expanding Universe. Now, that is something new, I thought, when he first started telling me how much he loves me. Love like the expanding Universe; which means he can never ever love me less but can only love me more and more each passing day! Wow! This is something I learnt and kept close to my heart.  

Tirus’ lessons in love have made me a somewhat more passionate person than I could possibly remember over the years. My love, my passion has made me a more giving person in the process. Loving and giving go hand in hand. Mom used to tell me, “When you give, give with hands spread out.” I remembered hence. Giving has got me back a lot of love; love in all forms of the word and I have cherished every magic moment of this God-gifted incense.

So, when I met this really young person I was counselling in the early evening of 9^th April, who was bereft of love from a very young age from his parents and friends, it left me wondering in despair about what he would do and how would he behave now that he no longer believed in the magic of love.

Not believing in love? Something that I will never be able to fathom. How can someone not believe in the one thing that we so desperately want with all our life; love? Love makes the world go round, I tell people. Love heals, cures and creates. Love assures. Love is faith. Love is God. It is that one ingredient without which life loses it taste, its aroma, its appetite. Love nurtures. Love brings forth happiness. Love is sunshine. It is everything. If people were to be asked, “What is that one precious thing that you desire for most in your life.” And we can be assured that 80% of the people would answer, “I want love,” instead of saying, “I want gold, silver or platinum.”

So when this soigné gentleman tells me that love is a waste of time and that he would rather spend his energy earning money for himself, I felt my one hour of counselling has gone utterly wasted. I could feel so much hate inside him; for his mother, his friends and his girldfriend, who he loved and trusted the most. He felt cheated by life. Now, he wants enough power and money to start a happy family, something he says he is very passionate about. "I want to start my married life with a woman who I want to treat like a princess and give my child the best childhood ever; something I never got as a kid." I remain perplexed, only to wish with all my heart that God pours some of His love into this fine strapping young man to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

(But I know that it will take time for him to break free from the shackles of hurt and deceit that he had to go through when he professed his love for someone with all his heart! The least I can do at this point is pray! ‘Cause a couple of years ago, when I went down to the river and asked myself the meaning of my birth, the answer which reverberated across the vast expanse of water was, “You have been born to give, to love and to care for the sea of people across the world. You will be a giver; giver in all forms. Your life is not yours. It is for the teeming billions who need you.” Amen!)  

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 85. IN THE COMPANY OF GOOD PEOPLE

Ahh...  The smell of books! If there is one thing I love to do is to turn the pages of a new book and smell it. It is a heady concoction; making me want to leave everything else and nose-dive into a world of the unknown; to be known to me only after several pages of revelation.

So when the United Nations Information Centre decided to inaugurate its library at the Administrative Staff College at Khanapara, I headed straight to the venue on the morning of 6^th of April. It was a privilege to meet Ms. Kiran Mehra-Kerpelman, director of the UN Information Centre for India and Bhutan and the Administrative Officer, Ms. Sanjana Subramanian as they spoke of their plans for Assam and the Northeast.

And imagine my luck! I got to meet them again in the evening aboard the Alfresco for a tete-a-tete cruise and a dinner, while the Brahmaputra whipped up the chillier than the usual wind. Both the charismatic ladies enjoyed to the core, wishing they had a few days in hand to travel around the state. But they promised themselves that they would be back to see of the magic State. We know that, don’t we? Assam has this unimaginable beauty, which needs the eyes of a romantic to love it! 

84. Work-a-holic!

A RED day. 5th of April was a day I will never forget. So much work and success at the end of the day! 

(And all this in a Nyishi mekhela I picked up on a trip to Itanagar and a top from Penny Lane!) 

83. Flashes of memories

A loud "Oye! Hi!" and I turn around from my reading to see the most well-dressed-for-the-occasion person walking up to me through the studio door, beaming from ear to ear. Tight curly hair tied neatly into a ponytail at the nape and a colourful bandana to complete the head look. A deep V-necked tee with graffiti up front, a stylised pair of shorts and a pair of slippers one would stop, look down and start a conversation about. The bag that slung across the shoulders had a face of a man embossed in deep brown leather. A lot of tribal jewelry collected in adventurous journeys abroad completed the look of this fashionista, who has been loved, talked about endlessly and has been a friend for almost everyone in the media industry. Not to forget his run down Maruti 800, with war paint all over, which he drove as if he drove a Hummer, shouting at any of his friends he would meet in the traffic.

He is Neelo Chetia, a person passionate to the core about his work and most importantly, life. His smile and sunny countenance would brighten up even the dullest moment of a day. His jokes would have us bursting at the seams and begging him to stop. Never a moment of lull when he starts speaking and the wide-eyed audience in us would be awe-struck as he related his escapades. His laughter would reverberate throughout the whole of the fifth floor of the studio apartment where we went for our work. Neelo Chetia's name itself is synonomous to Life; a life of passion and love. 

Neelo's dresses vary with his moods. Often, he would be dressed in a pair of denim shorts, a perfect tee, a pair of boots and a cowboy hat. On other days, he would do his hair in dread locks, saying slyly with a grin that one of his girlfriends did it for him. And if he prefers, he would leave his locks free and make us envy the quality of his hair. 

Neelo has given us some of the most off-the-cuff documentaries ever. His thoughts differ from the run-of-the-mill thoughts that most of the other producers and directors had while directing a film. His work is poetry. He would weave a story out of nothing, spending sleepless nights working on this one passion he harboured closest to his heart. His documentaries have got rave reviews all across the world in different film festivals and why not. The feverish heights he takes his mind to think about any subject is mind boggling. 

Two years back Neelo was daignosed with cancer. I couldn't believe it. How could a person who loves life so much get so much pain from life itself? Not fair, not fair at all!

I went to see him when he was taking his chemotherapy at the hospital. I walked in gingerly, not knowing what to expect. He was like, "Oye, Hi! Come sit here!" I sat next to his bed and tears streamed down my cheek, uncontrollably. He looked taken aback. "Why are you crying stupid? I am doing great, can't you see that? I will be out in no time and working again." What I saw that day has been imprinted in my mind forever!

I saw a Neelo, happy as happy could be, working on his laptop for his next documentary. I had bought a new car then and he asked me if he could take my car for the shoot,which he would like to start as soon as he was out of the hospital. I told him ofcourse he could. After sitting for an hour, I knew that nothing, take that as nothing in this world could deter this amazing human being from looking at the most beautiful side of life. And I thought I had problems?

After several painful chemotherapies later and trips to Delhi for treatment, Neelo left us, creating a void that can never be filled up by anyone else. I didn't go to see him later 'cause I heard from friends that he was looking different and could no longer speak. I didn't want to see that as I don't want to remember Neelo as 'someone else'. I just want to remember Neelo as the charismatic person who loved life to an unimaginable height, the romantic dude who loved dressing up to a perfect T, who laughed with all his heart and who loved gallavanting across the world. 

Thankyou Neelo. You taught me that life is to be enjoyed to the core; every second is precious, no matter what happens. Hats off to you fashionista! 

(Why I am writing this piece for Neelo after almost two years is the fact that life is not about my problems alone. It is also about people we have loved along the way and who have left us only to come back in flashes of thoughts on particular days!)

82. Love is LOVE!

When people ask me what do I do, what is my business; I tell them I Love. They look pretty taken aback. Love? Love what, whom, how, when, where? So many questions but I have only one answer; I love! 

Love is such a thing I would say that has been distorted, contorted, moulded, twisted and what not into shapes, manners, ideas, things, visions, dreams and a lot more. 

But Love is only LOVE. It has only one way to feel it, understand it, nurture it, crave for it, see it; Love. It is complicated, yet it is the easiest thing to do. It is this heady concoction, the aroma that just refuses to go away. It is sheer madness that wishes to grow wings and take flight. It simply wants to write, write and write, on themes unheard of. It composes the insanest of poetry and dances in the rain to a beat never played before. It wants to run through the valley of flowers. It wants to go wild having ice-creams while it is snowing. It wishes to dance in the rain only to have the water trickle down the crevices of the body. It wishes to do a lot of things to love. It wants to scream and shout. But more than often is unable to do so.  So, Love is LOVE!
(This is not a literary piece and is not supposed to be taken too seriously!)

( It was a working evening for me. However, inspite of it, I did a casual do for the ensemble and rushed to work!)