Interview on the Streets of Reading

As I left office for lunch and turned a corner in the King's Road, I was stopped by two kids. I was deep in thought and hence was walking with my head down. When they called out to me, startled I looked up and unconciously tensed. It turned out that the two kids were out to do a survey. They held a card board in hand with papers to write on and a questionnaire.

The following were their questions:

The boy with the black hat: Do you believe in God? (?)
Me: Yes I do(I mean what kind of silly question is this to ask at noon to a person who is hungry and has been staring at the computer for the past 3 hours with just a slice of bread and a glass of juice inside her?)(He makes a line on his paper in series with the existing lines just the way we used to in school for measuring frequency!)

The boy with the black hat: What makes you believe that there is a God? (??)
Me: aww..ummm(smile)
The boy with the black hat: Not Sure?
Me: The fact that I am here, alive, standing and talking to you makes me believe that there is a God (I give myself 8 on 10 for that answer - More confidence gained- a smug look on face now...Yet hungry and wondering what are these boys up to!! And I would not survive long if you keep me talking in this cold windy street.)

The boy with the black hat: Do you think there is a purpose to life? (???)
Me:(My purpose in life for the next 1 hour is to get back home, cook something, fill my poor grumbling tummy and get back to my work) Yes there definitely is! ( He doesnt understand...I am hungry!)

The boy with the black hat: What is your purpose in life?
Me: (Good question - I could have answered that had I wanted to before you asked me this question - Since you ask...) I just want happiness for the people who are connected to me and are important for me!

The boy with the black hat: What makes you happy?
Me: I am not sure.

The boy with the black hat: Where are you from?
Me: India(Ofcourse!! Can't you make out from my looks?)

The boy with the black hat:What are you? Hindu, Muslim, christian?
Me:(I am none of the above...I am hungry!!! Let me go!!) Hindu

The boy with the black hat then says, "Can have your number and address so that we can come and talk to you about all this" ?. I very politely tell him that I am going back to India on Tuesday and am busy at work everyday till then. He says OK and walks on after saying "It was nice talking to you" (!!).

I passed by the chapel on the street. I believe there is a God and have never questioned my belief. This belief is a sustenance for my soul. I wouldnt live through the hard days had I nothing to hold on to. I have faith..This keeps me going.

Back home in the evening. I have a lot of work to finish before this weekend. Yet I sit down and recount this incident today. I dont yet have the answer to the question "What makes me happy".

A Walk in the Clouds

"I have been walking...in the clouds"
"Welcome back to earth"
Watched this movie by chance for the 4th time. It is timeless and quite independent of places and cultures.A soldier headed back home from 4 years at war, a girl headed back home after going through love, heartbreak and pain at the university which brought her face to face with life. "Paul Sutton, you are the most honourable man I have met in my life" is what she says before he leaves her after helping her through the initial phase of the ignominy she suffers. He goes to her family posing as her husband so that she can face her parents. He loves her but cannot have her because he is not free. After some twists and turns in the story, he comes back to her. And all ends just as it ought to.

He indeed was very brave and honourable.

I love this movie, because it moves at a good pace and never drags. I like the strong characters of Victoria and Paul Sutton.

If I digress a little and move my focus to the influences for this movie...I would zero in on life. We often go for a walk in the clouds. We dream we strive, and we achieve some of what we long for. We become happy for a while. Then the golden edges of the pages we so lovingly had written to our lives start to fray and we are back to earth. And once a person is on earth, he constantly wants. We build more dreams, struggle and achieve them...This is a cycle that goes on. I wonder at human nature, rather marvel at it. We live for something every moment...What would life become if we never dreamt, if we never wished, if we never went for that walk in the clouds?

Can't find my Blog

My first day at Blogspot and my second blog. My enthusiasm seems to have waned a bit and I have a reason for it.
Picking up the thread from my previous blog which highlights my obscure existence...
Feeling good about having published my blog, I hurriedly filled up a few details about me on the profile page and eagerly signed out. I opened a google page to search for a name called Jaya Jha(in a hope that I would discover a link to a page with the name Another day in my Life), but I crashed face down ( a jolt - yet another!) when I discovered that my silly little stupid insignificant blog was not significant enough for google to list on the first 10 pages of its search results! I found 10 pages worth of links to blogs and comments and essays and ramblings and poems from a Jaya Jha, which is not me and some links to Jaya Bachan, the famous movie star! I am happy for them. They have 10 pages of search results by google directing us to them and in all likelihood they have worked hard for this distinction and deserve it.

On second thoughts this makes me happy for me as well. I wrote a blog which is what I would write in a diary :-) and which can be found and read by people only if they are persistent and really wish to understand a beclouded life.

Another Day in my Life

This being my second blog(the first one being on Rediff, which I wrote and forgot a long time back in college!), I thought it better start with a mundane description of the life and wanderings of a person of no particular significance, but just an existence.

I started off the day by getting up at 9.30 (bright and early!) in the morning. This being one of the 13 weekends and fortunatey the second last I have to spend in a country called England. I had planned to visit the old Roman Town of Bath with a British colleague of mine and a Spanish archaeologist friend of hers. Just woken up after the Diwali night (which was spent doing pretty much nothing), I looked out of the Window and saw dark clouds and rain drops on the glass panes. I knew from the sight of it that it would be just another wet and windy day, that I've come to love about England(which most natives don't).

I reached the station and met my fellow travellers, one of whom speaks Egnlish that I had taken a little time to get used to(when I had first met her 3 months back) and the other who speaks broken English with a Spanish accent and constantly refers to a dictionary to see if she is ordering the right dish on some menu, or understanding a word we say correctly, or rather to cross check what she is saying makes sense to us! I have developed a fondness for my colleague, for she is one of the few people who have tried (without actually trying) to make this 3 month exile a little easy for me, just by being there and chatting with me, and lending me books to read and offering little chocolates at work.

The day went on well. It rained most of the day. I got to see a bit of a mixture of Roman and British culture and a glimpse of the society through ages (starting sometime around 65 AD ) right from the Romans in England to a society in Jane Austen's time to the present day. I sometimes got a feeling of deja vu as I walked the Roman Baths and the Pump houses with live music. Every new place I go to has a different kind of feel to it. The rows of old Georgian houses nestled neatly into the hills, the falling rain, the steam rising from the mineral Baths, the pigeons fluttering, seeking shelter from the downpour, the hollies hanging overhead as a symbol heralding Christmas, the quiet streets, the quaint Nepalese Restaurant in the middle of no where, all left me feeling as though I had reached a different age.

Then the journey back home(although Reading is not my home, I have stayed and worked here for the past 3 months and I always feel comfortable and safe on a train back to this place more than on a train back to Noida), made me feel I had had a very different experience and had done something to add a little meaning to the existence I have. I got a phone call from India which refreshed my longings to be back home (this time I refer to home as being in Patna and with the people I live for) because he spoke a language I grew up speaking, he spoke of food I had not tasted for the past 3 months, he talked of troubled thoughts he had because he had overspent on a television he had wanted for his room. I couldn't offer much help or advice, but that didn't mean I did not understand. I seldom live in the real world. In my own world things are very different. People don't do things because they have to, they do thing because they want to. They don't live just because they have to, but because they want to, because it makes them and the people they love happy. Sadly, although everyone realizes that life is short and has more to it than appears , we cannot break away from the entanglements we weave around ourselves. By the time we realize this and try to struggle out, its already quite late. And when we realize, its never too late to start afresh, its already too late to start all over.

I wouldnt have traded this day in my life for a day from someone else's just because the world would classify that existence significant. My world is very small and there are not many people who know of it, but that makes it all the more significant for me, because it is mine and has been mine for the many years past.

The wanderings I mention in the opening lines of this blog, are not that of a person travelling but of the thoughts that wander, senses that feel, listen, see and assimilate. The turn of events in the days of my life, have helped me grow up and take one step at a time, falter, burn my fingers, step over a sharp rock, nurse my fingers and foot, rekindle the fire, smoothen the edges of the rock, at the same time not be too critical of the rock that cut my foot, or the fire that singed my fingers or that one of the many utterances (from people I value) that scarred me.

Some people say, its all a part of life. I agree. I have no means or the right to think differently or the right to be understood in a different (and correct way) than the usual preconceived ways of understanding. Here again the human brain plays a more important role than the human heart(which has pretty much been subjugated and quashed over the years). The brain is fed with ideas, degrees, books, thoughts about having a significant existence, but little do people realise the transitory nature of all things tangible. I value education, I value knowledge, I dont value the money that this education helps us 'accumulate and spend' rather than 'earn and use'.

I know this little(or rather long) piece of blog has turned into alleys, changed directions from being a travelogue to a kind of philosophical essay, pretty much like my wanderings. This insignificant existence of mine has seen lots of ups and quite a balancing number or overbalancing number of downs, which have made me what I am today. Although not significant in this big world, in my own silly little stupid world all of it is quite important and rather significant.