A shot from this morning’s five mile run. I am sure it looks like a beautiful house in an idyllic rural setting. But the dark bars in the top is jarring and out of place – right? Now turn the picture upside down!!!! The picture is a reflection of one of my neighbor’s house in the crystal clear water of his lake. The black bars are nothing but the horse fence.
That was a beautiful morning run!!!
My New York flight to Atlanta finally took off at 12:15 PM (original time 7:59 AM). I was chatting with the lady sitting next to me who was equally tired and frustrated. Found out she has been in Georgia all her life. We started talking about my travels and the topic of India came up. Then I made the following ill-fated attempt to explain “Holi” to her…
Me: “Did you know tomorrow is ‘Holi’ day in India”?
She: “It is a holiday in India?”
Me: “No, no, no. Tomorrow we celebrate Holi in India”.
She: “What does Holi stand for?”
Me: “Well, it is rooted in Hindu mythology”.
She: “Oh! you mean it is a ‘Holy’ day in India.”
Me: “Yes. No. Yes. Oh! Boy! It is a holiday in India because we celebrate Holi which is a holy event for us. BTW, you are really confusing me now”.
She: “I am the one confusing you? So, anyways, what do you do on your Holi day?”.
Me: “Well, we buy colored powder. Lots of them. And then also mix colors with water to make colored water. Lots of buckets”.
She: “Why would you make so much colored water and powder?”
Me: “We throw them at each other”.
She: “What?”
Me: “We throw them at each other”.
She: “Why?”
Me: “Because it is holy to do so”.
She: “Don’t get started again”
Me: “Okay, Okay. The celebration is all about throwing colors at each others”.
She: “Your friends?”
Me: “Yes. And also any random person on the street”
She: “Even if you do not know them?”
Me: “Even if we do not know them.”
She: “Old people?”
Me: “Sure”
She: “Kids?
Me: “Of course”
She: “Cows?”
Me: “Yep. Cows are holy”.
She: “Again, you have started?”
Me: “Oh! sorry!”
Me: “So, that is the whole idea. We throw colors at each other”
She: “Nobody gets mad?”
Me: “Some do”
She: “Don’t they yell and scream?”
Me: “Yes. So now we carry guns.”
She: “Like in Texas?”
Me: “No, no. I mean water guns. Like our kids use in the swimming pool. That way, we can throw colors from a distance and run away”.
She: “What if they can outrun you and beat you up?”
Me: “For them, we have water balloons. We throw from a safer distance”.
She: “Good God! The whole country becomes crazy, huh?”
Me: “Yes, that is because we also tend to have bhang on that day”
She: “Bhang?”
Me: “Leaves of cannabis”
She: “You have cannabis?”
Me: “Some do”
She: “Like in Colorado?”
Me: “No, I think in Colorado, everybody does.”
She: “So, you still did not tell me what is this festival all about”
Me: “Well, you see we have a lot of Gods”
She: “So I have heard”.
Me: “One main God is called Lord Krishna. He had colored Radha with ….”
She: “Radha being his wife God?”
Me: “Ummmm… no, I think Radha was his uncle’s wife”
She: “Why was he putting colors on her?”
Me: “I think he was in love. He married her later.”
She: “You think?”
Me: “No, no, I know”
She: “So, let me get this straight. Some God was trying to marry his uncle’s wife. So, you guys get high on cannabis and throw colors at each other. Yeah?”
Me: “Something like that.”
She: “And the country gets a holiday for that?”
Me: “I told you it is a holy day”.
She: “Again you started….”
Me: “No. This time you started”
She: “That’s true”…
It is at that point our breakfast arrived. This is well past 1 PM, mind you!!
A few months back, Ritesh had reached out thru Facebook reminding me how we got to know each other – I had interviewed him in campus (this was also my alma mater) and offered him a job in Dallas. He had reached out to me to thank me about that event from fifteen years earlier. He felt a lot of his subsequent success in career and life was defined by that moment. And he had a request to meet me sometime during my travels. I had promised him to do so and wrote down in my small notebook of “People I have promised to meet”.
Yesterday was a pretty long set of meetings in New York. First the customer meeting went an hour over (which is usually good for business 🙂 ) followed by the customer’s request to have a drink after the meetings (which is usually very good for business 🙂 ). However, at the end of all that I did get a chance to meet Ritesh. Unfortunately, I had to make him wait as I finished all my calls which had gotten pushed out due to the disruption in my calendar.
As I finally put my phone down and shook the hands of patiently-waiting-Ritesh, my first question was “Is there a single puzzle I have posted till date that you have NOT cracked?’. If my memory serves me right, he has cracked most of my puzzles.
We got out of the hotel, trudged through slush and sludge (NYC had terrible weather) and went to a restaurant nearby and settled down. And then caught up on the past fifteen years. It was absolutely heartening to hear about his success in career as well as the tremendous progress some of his batchmates who were also recruited that time has made over the years.
Surprisingly, we spent a lot of time talking about life, death, time and such other things that I would not have expected anybody who is still some way away from 40 to show any interest in. Finally, just as he was leaving, I found out one more connection – we lived in the same dorm (each dorm had 30 students) – D13 – although separated by nearly 10 years!
It was good to catch up with this gem of a human being, Ritesh!!
There is a box with 99 white balls and 101 black balls in it. And you have a lot of white and black balls outside the box.Â
You pick two balls at random from the box. If they are a black and a white, you throw the black ball out and put the white ball back in the box. If however, you got two whites or two blacks then you throw both of them out and instead put back a black one from the pile outside.
Now, you keep doing this till you have one ball left in the box.
What color is the ball?
I do not know the name the of the poet
“Ahista chal zindagi, abhi kai karz chukana baaki hai
Kuch dard mitana baaki hai, kuch farz nibhana baaki hai
Raftaar mein tere chalne se kuchh rooth gaye, kuch chhut gaye
Roothon ko manana baaki hai, roton ko hasana baaki hai
Kuch hasraatein abhi adhuri hain, kuch kaam bhi aur zaruri hai
Khwahishen jo ghut gayi is dil mein, unko dafnana baaki hai
Kuch rishte ban kar toot gaye, kuch judte judte chhut gaye
Un toote-chhute rishton ke zakhmon ko mitana baaki hai
Tu aagey chal main aata hoon, kya chhod tujhe ji paunga?
Is saanson par haq hai jinka, unko samjhaana baaki hai
Ahista chal zindagi, abhi kai karz chukana baaki hai”
Roughly translated…
“Slow down your pace, Oh Life! There is a lot of debt yet to be repaid
Some pains are yet to be erased, some duties are yet to be fulfilled
Oh! Life! Your speed led to some being angry; and some just went away
The upset are yet to be pacified; the crying ones are yet to be comforted
Some wishes are yet to be fulfilled; some work is yet to be completed
Desires that are imprisoned in my heart, they are yet to be buried
Some relationships broke after they bloomed, some broke away even before they could bloom
All those wounds of broken relations – they are yet to be healed
Oh! Life! You carry on. I will come along. (But) can I possibly live without you?
(After all), He who controls my every breath, I am yet to come to terms with Him.
Slow down your pace, Oh Life! There is a lot of debt yet to be repaid”
The alarm clock shook me up early in the morning. Half sleepy, still in bed, I was scanning quickly the mails and messages on my phone to check on the important items of the day. It was a FB message that completely shook me out of my bed.
Many hours later, I am still trying to process the news. It has been a whirlwind of emotions. Often my mind goes back to the king snake. That my father in law saw in our property when he was visiting us. That led him to recoil. And lose balance. And fall. And break his hip. Without that I would have never taken him to my brother in law’s house in Kharagpur after I accompanied him back to India. And without taking him there, I would have never realized “Oh! this is an hour away from Midnapore. Maybe I should visit Sibapriya and his parents!!”.
That was barely six months back. His dad was frail and was not in a physical or psychological shape to hold a conversation down with me. He could barely even recognize me from nearly thirty years back when his son and I used to go to the same school in white shirt and grey shorts. But I took a lot of pictures of him.
And the FB message was essentially to let me know that those were the last pictures I would ever have of him.
It is that finality of death that intrigues me and befuddles me. I know I am not supposed to be sad at death. I realize that death is a part of life. If I accept existence, I have to accept lack thereof. I recognize that I ought to celebrate Sibapriya’s dad’s life. Coming from the humble beginnings that he had, what he made of himself is something to be emulated. That he has raised a child as kind, humble and successful as Sibapriya is something I want to say about myself someday reflecting on my children. I get all that. I know that achievement is to be celebrated. And I do.
But it is that lingering…. “yes, but”…
…. I cannot barge into his house one more afternoon just to have a coffee….
…. I cannot go to his bedroom and ask him to sit on his bed so I can take a few more pictures…
…. I cannot ever say to him again “Porer baar abaar dekha hobey. Tokhon bosey aaro golpo hobey”. (“Next time I will see you again and we will sit down and talk about some more stories”)
…. like I did in September
It is that even small ray of hope that death absolutely extinguishes once and for ever….
For all that, I will take his limited life on earth any day. Without that, I would have never had a friend called Sibapriya in my fifth grade.
And that is the lasting legacy he has left for me….
