Average American

Old professionals on a new job.

To the face they may be professional.

Sincere.

Quick learners.

Conscientious.

Great communicator.

To the back they are over confident.

Skill deficient.

Inconsistent.

Untrustworthy.

Arrogant.

Indifferent.

Socially inept.

Those from overseas definitely are

Brown.

Accented.

Immigrant.

Excellence is threatening.

Excellence deserves vindication.

Jealousy.

Gossip.

Even, oppression.

Average is necessary.

Average is promoted.

Average is permitted.

To be allowed to be someone, there is only one need.

Tact.

Tact to be visible but not be noticed.

Lack of tact is the one critical deficiency to overcome.

Good, bad or excellent does not matter.

Results, do not matter.

Making a million for the organization, does not matter.

Working enough for ten, does not matter.

This is America.

The only thing that matters is whether you can fit in with the average.

Purge

A few months back there was another emotional upheaval to go through.

What do you do when you are offered a path?
Is there ever a choice?

You think you have a choice.
You do what you have to do.

So I did.
The question had presented itself.
It is much simpler than what it was made out to be.

It was merely a question of recognizing the pus that had been festering.
The pus of unanswered questions.
The questions unanswered because they were never asked.
The questions never asked for fear they wouldn't be answered.

The only way to rid the body of an abscess is to drain the pus.
I did it too.
I asked all those questions.

I was right about one thing.
There was no answer.

I was not right about one thing.
It was not a futile exercise.

We sometimes hold on to our shackles.
So used to them, we guard our own prisons.
Letting go is all it takes.

The answers will come... 
Or they may not.

But now I am purged and the healing has begun.

Why?.... Because.....

There was a time, when someone would walk out on me without a reason, and I would be left with only one thing.

A curiosity so strong, I could barely make it through the darkness of that one word.

Why?

Then it started happening.

Those people started to come back. 

Years apart.

Paths start crossing and things have a way of coming around.

There must be some merit to the String theory! 

And when they come around, the backs are no longer turned.

To avoid looking into the eyes is no longer an option.

The truth is Absolution!

It is never what I expect the answer to be.

Never an assumed flaw I wondered about.

Even though, relentless self scrutiny did offer observations that remedied many a real flaw I had.

It is a poisoned gossip vine.

Or a weak spine.

Sometimes, mere inconvenience.

Greater than the closure, is the lesson.

The more precious for the bitter way it is learned.

When someone turns their back on you for apparently no reason, the Universe is giving you a gift!

Accept it and cherish the opportunity to know the truth about someone's character.

Q. Why?

A. Because...

Sometimes we need just an ear.

Sometimes we need a hand to hold.

Sometimes we need a shoulder to prop on.

Sometimes, we need to look into the mirror of a turned back.

The Urge!

It's back.
The urge.
The same urge.

The urge to look into your eyes.
The urge to hold you once more.

The urge to feel your hand on the small of my back, pulling me closer.
The urge to feel your lips on my neck.

The urge to kiss you.
The urge to have what cannot be had.

The urge that kills me.

If only I could fly to you right now.

Nelson Mandela.. To an Unknown Girl

In 1994, an unknown girl in fifth grade looked on as a seventy six year old man was sworn in as the president of a nation on her fourteen inch black and white TV set.

Life wasn't about much at that time but growing up in a house with a black and white TV set in 1994 was not great.

She didn't know much about this man but the news said he had found what a whole nation had been looking for.
He had found it even though he had been in jail for twenty seven years.

In her tiny world, a fifth grader decided she won't give up. Ever.
She decided that if that old guy hadn't given up in jail for that long, she had no right to give up as a free citizen.

She imagined grandpa would be like that if she knew him.
She called him Papá in her heart.
She took strength from him.

Papá, you shall always stay in my heart.
You shall always be a light and a fountain of strength.

Now, sleep well!

Silver Linings!

Just to change the tone of the blog for a bit.
My encounters with the Mighty Orb that can be so easily overpowered by a ball of vapor!

Between the layers upon layers of clouds before landing in San Francisco.
Boy!.. It was day to night in less than 30 secs.
Below, the city was dark and all the street lights were on.

In a remote place in North East India... playing hide and seek in the storm. 
Was able to take the snap just before the winds picked up and blew the flimsy wooden fence away.
No one got hurt!

Outside a public parking lot in Miami, Florida.
The cloud came from nowhere on what was an awesome sunny February afternoon!

 At the Everglades, Florida. 
The solitary (well, almost) cloud in Shark Valley trail. 
Must say, it was a welcome respite. 
We chose a particularly sunny day to rent bicycles.

 Again at the Everglades! 
Peeping out...

Sunset in the Glades that same day, taken from an air boat.. Not one of the typical silver linings but definitely, one of the most beautiful sunsets I ever saw.

On a side note, there is nothing airy about the air boats. They are cumbersome and noisy and I was surprised, we could spot even one gator in the wild.

If I were a gator, I would be miles away from that noise.

Will post more pics and stuff later.

Clarity... or Lack of it!

My previous blog was full of outrage.

Fueled by a sense of unfathomable betrayal.

Probably, based on a belief that telling someone you love them, somehow makes a difference.

It gets you the right to be directly informed.

It makes you deserve that much.

Apparently,it doesn't.

Only madmen in love can nourish such romantic notion.

The timing is so atrocious.

The moment I gather myself and shards of my heart.

The moment I decide to distance myself, he has to come back.

He has to leave a word.

A formal greeting.

A word so deprived of emotion, it feels disrespectful.

Disrespectful, and fouler than an abuse.

Like spit in the face.

Like alms so petty, they offend a beggar.

It is like he mocks my love.

Or his knowledge of it.

Yet, I wait for that one pitiful word.

Wait with eager anticipation.

Wait, till it brings the disappointment of its bland notion.

Yet, I love him, over the other who loves me so truly.

Am I so blindly ungrateful?

There is nothing I appreciate more than my unparalleled fortune in what I already have.

Then why are my affections so divided?

Is it the allure of that which is beyond reach?

At least, the question is clear now. 

In time, the answer may present itself too.

Until then...

Interpreting Silence!... What a mess?

Everything I posted so far, I kept impersonal.
Derived from so deep in the heart or so far in the past that it has a surreal distance from me.
Like it was someone else's story.

Today I must talk of something so recent that it can't be separated from reality.
Cannot be draped in any veil of comfort.

I told him I love him and I would leave everything for him.
It was too early to let him know but it was my only chance.

I asked for five minutes to hold him because something inside me knew he was too good to stay.

He didn't give me those five minutes.
He gave me a song and went silent.

I needed one answer.
He wouldn't even let me ask the question.

I kept banging at the door.
He let me know he was there but he wouldn't make a sound.

The song could have meant anything.
His silence could have meant anything.

Did it mean he didn't feel the way I felt?
Did it mean it just wasn't right?
Did it mean anything at all?
What? 
What did it mean?

I kept telling myself that it was I who came on too hard.
That the silence could only mean he loved me not.
And it looked like it.
He removed all trace of me.
Even as I watched.

So I tried to keep up my best face.
I believed he moved on.
So I tried to make myself believe I moved on.

Then he shows up with this girl.
So much of me in her, from the trinket she wears to the words she used.

Now.. what do I make of the silence?
Am I reading into it because I feel jealous?
I must be jealous but something else is bothering me more.

What's wrong with boys?
Why don't they say it to your face?

It will hurt much less to know the truth than to keep guessing.
A man can't read a woman's mind but so is true for women.
Women can't read minds too.

Why don't you go lose yourself Jad?
Why don't you say it out loud?
Even now, why don't you?

How long till I am free of you?
How long till I can move on?

How long till this noisy silence lasts?

Cowards

Cowards.
They are humans.
They have dreams.
They want to make it big.

They want it all like someone owes it to them.
Like it would just show up in a sock in the morning.
It doesn't.

They think it is everybody's job to give them what they want.
Like they gave it all the longing they had.
Like they gave all their time and effort to someone else's dream.

Like just wanting is enough to deserve it.
It isn't.

The boss believes it.
The client believes it.
The coward doesn't.

They can't accept it.
Their own failure.
Or a lack of achievement.

Sights are set on the next generation.
Like the child is born with all their own unfulfilled dreams.

The child keeps trying to live the coward's life.
Subdued by force.
Forced by duty.

Duty-bound to its creator.
With its own dreams in the back seat.

Suddenly the child is all grown up.
With wants and dreams there is no time to fulfill.

Another coward bred on cowardice.
And the spiral continues into another generation.

Interpreting Silence

This is where it all started in fifth grade:

"I finished my test and sat in the library while I waited for my brother to finish his. 
It was an exam day. 
I waited for the whole school.
Third to twelfth grade.

I marveled at the silence that surrounded me. 
I waited for the Goddess of Learning to descend and bless the tranquility.
I could almost see a chariot of light descend any moment now.
That moment was not to happen.

What descended was realization.
I realized this silence was not what seers and hermits sought to be enlightened.

This silence did not lift burdens off the mind.
This silence was born of the burdens that young minds bore.

This silence was born of fear.
What fruit could a tree bear that grew from the seed of fear.

There was no amazement of learning.
No joy of achievement.

Only the fear of not performing well enough for expectations.

It was the silence of childhoods silenced in the name of education."

My dad read the unsigned note two years later. 
He showed it to me.
He said I should learn from whoever wrote it.

I told him it was mine.

He went silent.
I tried to interpret his silence.

To this day I do not know if he approved that his child was not someone he couldn't be ashamed of.

I kept interpreting silence per my convenience...

to be continued...