Word to the self-assumed unwise

Relax. No one knows everything. You only know what you have experienced and that forms your telescope, periscope, magnifying glass to the world. There’s a lot out there and you can excavate it, slowly, at your own pace, in your own way. You watch mindless teen dramas when you should be reading the classics and you weep over photographs of poached rhinos. You get excited over lip gloss and frantic about economic reforms. You cuddle a million pillows while you sleep and you hesitate before shaking hands with strangers. You stammer sometimes and you wish you had more opinions. You can't get the gist of that grandiloquent article you read but you can offer an informed analysis of 'Gangnam Style'. You want to be loved and you don’t want anyone to know it. Everything that seems huge and terrifying and frustrating will disappear someday, but may your fears be gone before that. You are passionate and you are truthful and you are deep and you are light. You are you, exclusively and uniquely.

Relax. You can only be in one place at one time. So you are here. You be present here before buying a waitlisted ticket to there. No one ever looked good doing splits across continents, time zones and mind frames. You are local and you are global. You are such a mélange of feelings, thoughts, ideas and ideologies. You are a creation, a work of art. You feel eons away from the person you want to be but be satisfied-you are beautiful, special, wonderful, yeah, yeah, yeah but more importantly, you are complete right now. You are alive and you’d better be alive fully, in this little x sq ft of a box that has been presented to you. You have time and you have space. Your mind and soul are capable of accommodating infinite possibilities that your body can only dream of. Absorb the moment and employ it to your advantage. Breathe, open your eyes as wide as they can get it and soak in the technicolour.

Relax. You are loved. By at least one other soul in the world. And if that’s not enough, wrap your arms around your shoulders and give yourself a warm hug. Because you’ve earned it, because you’re worth it.

Oh and you need sunscreen.

'All Alright' by Sigur Ros playing in the background

Stop talking about writing and just write.

Can of worms.Why does that phrase come to mind?

So write abstractedly. Write under aliases and psedonyms. Just go write that book then. Fiction! Go forth, fictify. Stop dreaming about donning nautical striped espadrilles and white-white costumes and sitting on the floor of a yacht. Or even if you do, write about it.

But isn't silence the highest state, what we should aspire to?

You're far from silence, dude. All those bells clanging in your head. All those pop ditties. All those dramatic cinematic sequences.

Okay, okay.

Love Will Not Die, Gypsy...

My father passed away on Christmas 2011. It was a hard five months before that, with his illness and my parents' and my collective despair but he fought bravely. The dark situation brought us closer, made us realise our love and faith and brought us to squeeze as much as possible out of life. Books, music, movies and conversation helped. But his agony was too much to bear, for he was a liver of life. So eventually his passing turned out to be his liberation.

But of course, it's terrible, excruciatingly painful for us, the ones left behind. Me, I remain the sole custodian of his world now, the beautiful world he created and invited me into. So, it's lonely. Particularly to sit and write here in this room without him being always just a few feet away, always accessible.

But having known him and known his love, I know he'd want me to celebrate his life. Hence, http://rangareza.blogspot.in/ is born, my second blog, one dedicated to his memory. It's a blog to absorb and adore all the ephemeral beauties of life, to all those who've loved and lost our person(s) to the World Beyond. We haven't really lost them. They live on within us.