Chaos.

The chaos all around, books and papers scattered in the room, noises children playing and later crying, heat and power failure, unfinished tasks and fractured relationships it seems that equilibrium is lost and I need to regain the sangfroid earnestly. How should I begun. Writing about all the mess around is the first step to bring my concentration back to the most important tasks needed to be done. Not many weeks ago I had written that I have found balance and poise but it all slipped way. Why did it happen and why did I let it happen? A small misstep and then not checking it in time lead to the astray. I have to pull it back, my inner calm.

Back to blogging.

This has been the longest break from blogging as I was tied up in so many things tangible as well as intangible. My research on tourism went very well and I had a unique opportunity to interact with local people of Keenjhar Lake. I have to complete another research the completion of MS degree. Three kids and life is full of fun. I keep doing my jaunts in and around Hyderabad with family and take photographs. I am more into flickr now a days. These few lines are just to break a long hiatus on blogworld.

Lost but not defeated.

The taste of loss is not as bitter as I was anticipating. The fear of dreadful was killing me but dreadful failed to kill me. It is over and I have lost the battle. I fought till end and never quit. I am bruised and lost in oblivion. Licking wounds, empty handed and alone I reflect and say to myself never mind you followed your dream. I have nothing except my intact self esteem to challenge again the forces who think I am a history. The loss I endure is far more dear to me than the gains that tempt me to forsake my ideals. I am biding my time to reenter the arena.

38...so what!!!

Next month I will be 38 years old. When I look back at my last 10 years of life I find myself going through a lot of change. During these 10 years I have suffered set backs, endured difficult times, tasted defeats and passed through the phase of total abandonment by my so called close friends. The last decade has also given me some of the greatest happinesses of my life. I have become far more open, spontaneous, easygoing and carefree than what I was in 1997. I used to take everything very seriously and allow myself no margin of error. Hence I was very upright, fastidious and no-nonsense in dealing with people especially with students. I was respected but at the same time I was a lonely person. I used to wonder why any girl was not in my life. I was well educated, well placed, good looking yet I was a failure in the matter of love. I could talk for hours on current political issues, history, management, economics but couldn't engage a girl in a light conversation. One of my female colleague told me to read literature to understand the complexities of human relationships and particularly to understand female psychology because she felt I was too prudish. Literature didn't help me much to understand the female psychology what helped me most were women themselves. When I started listening to my female colleagues, to my cousins, to my girl students, I found that what women want is understanding of their emotions. All my credentials worth nothing when it comes to winning the heart of a woman because I knew only how to involve the brain and didn't know how to engage the heart. It was big eye opener for me. The transformation of my personality started and I became slowly more open and relaxed. Life became easy for me and I started enjoying my work more. The change in my personality didn't come quickly and easily and it took many years before I was able to get out of the confinement of a nice, perfect and infallible image that I had locked myself into. Then love of my life came. My poem roller coaster describes my sentiments.

Roller Coaster

"I am flawed, erratic and moody
yet you hold my hand all along
not knowing where I would lead you
sometimes we soar as if never to fall
when I become quiet, you wait for my call
my life is like a roller coaster
Love entered in my life when I stopped being perfect
and it was then you told me " I love to ride on a roller coaster.

I am not what I was in 1997 and I will be not what I am today in 2017. I have seen many of my dreams gone shattered and many new dreams come alive. I have met scores of beautiful, intelligent and remarkable women, read rich literature from Kundera to Murakami, travelled to remote and rugged places in Sindh, captured marvellous natural scenes in my camera, listened to intellectual giants and savored quality food during the last decade especially during last 5 years.

I feel young, 38 doesn't describe me. "Cheeni Kum."

Irrational son.

Why do I hurt my mother despite possessing ineffable love for her? I think the answer lies in my irrationality when it comes to my relation with my mother. I want to see her always happy. The sight of my mother being tense, sad or depressed shakes my world and I lose my sangfroid and try to make her happy instantly without realizing that she would naturally take some time to get out of her gloomy mood. I become extremely annoyed with whoever causes her bad mood. My extreme agitation affects my heart and brain and I start feeling pain. At this point my mother forgets her own pain, assures me that she is fine and asks me to be normal and there is absolutely nothing that she is worried about. When I hear her I should calm down but then I find myself in a vortex of emotions that keeps spinning my head. Seeing my condition my mother gets stressed and worried and there I feel utmost guilt that in the pursuit of making her happy I have inflicted pain on her. The guilt of causing pain to my mother further exasperates my condition. Finally after hours of talking, expressions of love for each other, promises of taking care of each other and hugging things start to normalize and my mother forgets her pain and smiles as I start my daily routine.
I know I do not deal with the normal swings of my mother’s mood in an emotionally intelligent way but despite my efforts to control my emotions, I lose my control over them and deny my mother her right to be sad, angry or depressed like any other normal human being.

On a weight loss jaunt

It has been 5 days since I am on a diet and eating only chicken and salad. It feels good but pounds are yet to shed. I want to lose weight to look great and feel great. I am enjoying the change in diet.