solitaire pensées

Understanding the Unexpected

The best things in life are unexpected - because there were no expectations.
~ Eli Khamarov

I reckon I am beginning to get it. Finally! I always used to ponder: What makes us glum and cheerful at the same time. Why are relations – both acquired and accidental – so complex to handle? Why do we sometimes scorn people we like? It hit me that in the end it all trills down to a stupid thing: Expectations. All of us have expectations of one other. I think -- as humans -- we expect because we love. Because we are wired that way. Because we associate our feelings with some notions. And that’s where the fault lines begin to emerge. No matter how akin we think, how much we adore one another, our actions are almost never the same. That’s because we may share the same vibes, our impulses tend to fluctuate from heart to heart.

People usually respect each other’s sensibilities in order to fit into the love map. They just don’t -- can’t -- rise to each another’s expectations always. The problem creeps up when we pin most of our happiness around these nuggets of expectations. At times, things do come up to our expectations and we tend to be ecstatic but such happiness is often fleeting. Often enough people get hurt because of pre-conceived ideas and because of a myriad assumed things. Because they expect the unexpected. I think guesswork only stains relations. It helps to be open, unexpecting and giving – like I have become.

I agree with Shakespeare, my fav dramatist, “Oft expectation fails, and most oft where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest; and despair most sits”. To me, there is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball. And that’s to be good from within, love minus expectations, dream plus desires.

Desire reminds me of a bitsy dream I had last night. I was walking through a passage filled with the amber glow of a thousand lights. The lights that fell on the floor seemed to change pattern like some ancient secret. They changed into wolves and flowers as the lights glowed more ferociously. Then the dream broke. My ac suddenly stopped. Time for a power-cut. At 40 degrees. Terra India. In 9 point something percent growth.

Sameer

Lyrical lines

Avril – variously called April also -- is in its last lag. Another month slowly slithers by. Life continues in this humdrum. I’ve been trying to attune my being, keeping pace with work, home and friends. I’ve somehow managed to keep myself occupied with stuff I love to do – read quality works, jot erudite stories for the Energy basket, run on the treadmill and listen to music. I’ve -- however -- not been able to catch up with my buddies. The travesty of it is that most of them are away, some are near yet far away and some far away yet so near to my stupid heart!

Life is good. Steady. It is not perhaps as exciting as I would like it to be. I reckon it is a realm where colors harmoniously recite magnificent poems to each other. As friends, we realize that we sing the same songs that lie deep in our souls, regardless of the words.
Come July Hadi, my childhood pal, is getting married in New York. I’m invited but I don’t know if I can make it. Salah has now graduated from the prestigious London School of Economics. These days Tanseer is happily skipping his dinners in the oil rich, Baku. Some prob with his weighing scales, I surmise. Suhail loves to zip on the winding, pine-scented roads of Kashmir in his waxen car. Wasy is perpetually busy – with a longish list of things. Jatin has been recently frolicking in Arizona and continues to be quietly dandy.

That leaves me to myself. I remain as always romantic, comical and open. I still do everything – from writing poems, which I don’t post on Internet anymore to cook my own food – with a textured velocity. My eyes are distant at times, lost in my childhood and my fancies. I laugh aloud. My laughter makes all optimism seem so inadequate.

That is my idea of life. Keep smiling. Laughing, if need be.

Sameer

Illogical life

Thy fate is the common fate of all;
Into each life some rain must fall

Life is Delphic. It is sweet, short, remarkable and it leads us up some very strange alleys. Perhaps no one can truly predict the outcome of it. No one can say which crossroads we end up on. It is a maze, which tests your patience. It is a classroom, where we all are curious students. I am perpetually mystified at what life has to offer me. I must admit, I never fully understand. It leaves me frustrated at times, jovial at others. In life, there is nowhere to run. I reckon, one has to hold onto hope, love, friendship and kindness. Alas, most of it is in short supply. Recherché, as they say in French.

I am trying to wade my time before I can fly to a little place where dreams take sail. Over here, I find nothing but hope. It must sound strange but I now enjoy -- not the newness of limbs -- but the buzz of a bumblebee, the glint of a child’s eye and the smiling faces of poor plebeians. I try to smell the rain, laugh at the little hurts that life brings on you and feel the wind. The wind of the air-conditioner, that is. On a more serious note, it is always sensible to not give in to a million agonies that lurk deep within us.

The last few weeks have been anfractuous. So many things happened in such little time that it feels like those mini dreams that mishmash in your head, as you try to recall them, next morning. I have this strange ability to smile even when kept out-of-the-loop, lied to, unloved. Often enough I like my own indecisiveness on such occasions. I don’t know how to confront souls, what to tell them. My arguments border on funny. I end up restraining myself from shouting like a farmer hollering to someone across a stream.

I watered our flowerpots this morning. The leaves made a pleasant rustle. Everyone loves being cared for, I thought.

Sameer Bhat

Tiptoeing through the Tulips

My days sprint like a nimble buck in the wilderness. There are times when I honestly feel like an oddball in this cacophony. Despite all the jokes, kisses and embraces there is still a silence within me that leaves me isolated in the heart of a crowd. Life must be like that, I tell myself. There are no full stops, no getting away from reality, no experiencing what you truly desire and yeah…no flocculent fingers in your hairs. I reckon often, why can’t life be a jubilation? Why can’t flowers bloom the whole year long? Why can’t we just be supine – and watch the stars twinkle? Why do we have these odd hints of fog? Almost always.

I no longer jog and tire my memory. It is pointless to think about people, situations, some smells. I think one must not be too schmaltzy in life. It is important to be kind in the heart. Be loving. Manifest the right attitude. Attitude is perhaps more important than money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.

Despite the little stacks of attitude, I never lose my ability to dream. I love to swim in them. I am still fond of the smell of friendship. I like to think about a lot of things: Love dance of the fish. Rain falling into the calm sea at dawn. The unexpected appearance -- and disappearance -- of love in our lives. Silences. Patience. Leaden mornings. Blue skies. Misty walks. Walleyed eyes.

No one completely understands destiny. We continue to hop the meadow – called life, like a nimble buck, which tiptoes through the tulips looking for its destination.

Sameer

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Pic: Kashmir, Dal-lake, evening

Tonga on the Turnpike

I like this pic for its colors. The Sunset, clouds, penumbral effect, the sky, bareness and because it is Kashmir.