Of Ancient Temples and Crashing Waves

I have great difficulty in remembering my dreams. When I wake up in the morning, I do spare a few seconds in recollecting the dreams I have had last night. More often than not, I draw a blank. On a few occasions, I do recall a series of blurred faces and voices but sadly, they are too vague to string together into a coherent scene. However, on a taxing day, sometime when I close my eyes, I have a few peaceful retreats I can transport to. One of such places is a rock temple which is over a thousand years old and overloooks the mighty Bay of Bengal.

Visiting monuments have always been a favored activity with me. It is a happy culmination of my penchant for travelling, history and photography. Luckily I live in a country dotted with spectacular historical sites. One such site is the Sea Shore temple which I visited in 2010. That memories of that trip have stayed with me since and visit me every once in while when I need comfort.

 I am walking alone towards the temple. Dusk is just falling. The elegant, tapered dome stands tall against the vast, vivid evening sky. The sea heaves gently in the side. The waves come crashing against the rocks lining the temple and then crawl back to meet the sea. I set foot inside the temple and can feel myself travelling back in time. The walls come alive with time honored tales and characters.The sculptures of the Gods gently draw me into their myths. At this point, the temple does not belong to an ancient kingdom. It stands there only to cater to my whims. The walls chronicling thousands of years of glory stand there only to give me some moments of peace. Under their gracious shadows, I am reminded once again what a bliss it is to steal some moments of solace from under the nose of the frenzied world. After a while I come out of the temple and make my way to the sea. I just sit on the shore, running my fingers through infinite grains of sand and watch till the sea and sky dissolve into each other.

I am never going to remember any dream as vividly as I remember this and I am thankful for that. For dreams often end abruptly; vanish into oblivion at the slightest disturbance. However, the idea of me strolling in an temple of an era bygone, beside the stunning sea will never fade as long as my imagination is alive.

Written in response to Daily Prompt – Freudian Flips

I Carry My Home in My Heart

Home – the word summons many images and sounds accumulated over the course of my life; a kaleidoscope of assorted apartments, streets, scents and people. A life of frequent transfers has made the idea of home a situational one; always moving, always adapting. For me, it has never been a specific physical entity; never bound by walls or a roof. The reason for this is simple. The thought of home is supposed to indicate constancy. It is meant to make a person feel rooted; to reassure them that no matter where they go, there is always a haven to return to. I haven’t had such luxury. Therefore, understandably, my interpretation of home is slightly different. It is simply the place where my parents are.

Years and years of relocating has made me exceptionally close to my family. Amidst the haze of changing addresses, schools and friends, my parents and my sister have been the only factor that has suggested stability. I speak from immense experience when I say that family is the only thing that you have in the end. Friends have come and gone but my best friend has always remained in the form of my mother. I may have studied under various teachers but my father still remains my greatest one; still teaching me patiently. And I doubt if I will find anyone else who can match the the histrionics my sister displays while laughing at my jokes.

Sadly I don’t have many objects that have remained with me since I was a child. Books, gadgets, clothes are in abundance but they don’t inspire nostalgia. If I leave on an adventure for a year, I will carry things that serve materialistic and practical purposes. But I will carry the thoughts and memories of my family as a reminder of home. I will bear the image of my parent’s smiling faces while bidding me goodbye at the airport; faces lined with pride, concern and unconditional love. My sister’s excited shrieks on fulfilling my life long dream to travel will stay with me wherever I go; unless they sneak in anything else in my luggage to remind me of home. After all, they will be the ones doing all my packing.

Written in response to Daily Prompt – An Ounce of Home

Being Jane Austen

I admit, it is a daunting task to decide which famous person I want to be for a day. Having being preceded by countless generations of inventors, thinkers, artists and leaders, there is just a surfeit of personalities to choose from. The world we live in today is the culmination of the achievements of these famous people and I, like any other well aware human being have an array of favorite personalities I would want to be. However, I would like to take a moment and consider the time we live in now and what being famous entails. In my opinion, fame should be related with real achievement and endurance; two attributes which present themselves only after some time has passed.

I am a bit of an old soul and have always nursed a wish to travel back in time. It would be fascinating to see the conditions we have evolved from. Perhaps this is why I love to read. In the absence of a time machine, a book is the next best thing which can make one explore our past. Literature is the reason why I am well acquainted with Victorian London or the Jazz Age. Though, there are countless accomplished authors who made this possible, the personality of one stands out for me.

My first tryst with Austen happened when I was 15. Emma was the first novel I read and since then, it has remained on my list of top 5 favorite books. I slowly devoured all her works and was truly starstruck. The most remarkable quality of her work is that a reader wants to revisit them time and again, despite reading it from cover to cover. I did the same when I was in my early twenties. I was a bit more mature and was able to sense the biting social commentary beyond the gentle comedy and romance. This is when I started thinking how hard it must have been for Austen to establish herself as a writer during that era. A woman showing a male dominated society the mirror, I would definitely travel in time to do that.

Whenever I read her novels, more than once I find my mind straying to the fact that she never married. She never experienced enduring love, except for her doomed romance with Tom Lefroy. Yet, she wrote about love and romance with such fervor that I want to bow to her imagination. Writing should be self exploratory. But when a story teller gives you an accomplished work which is not drawn from their experience, they are truly worth their salt.

I find Austen intriguing because so little is known about her private life. She lived a simple life, in a close knit family. She received only one marriage proposal in her entire life, which she turned down. She never moved in the same circles as other writers of her time. Most of her fame was achieved after her death as her novels were published anonymously while she lived. However, she remained utterly dedicated to her craft throughout her short life. Her life was as charmed as it was nondescript.  I wonder if she knew about how accomplished she would go on to be. I wonder if she realized that she was setting impossible standards for men for centuries to come; that her novels would see millions of women through lonely evenings.

I wish I could live her life for a day; be bound by social conventions and gently breaking them at the same time, be a quiet iconoclast. Above all, I would love to be known as the woman who gave Mr. Darcy to the world.

Written in response to Daily Prompt – Instant Celebrity

An Open Letter to my Day

I have been tasked to describe you today. To be precise, I have to describe what I do in the expanse of the twenty four hours you bring me on such a regular basis. In the simplest sense, you are merely a means of measuring time, aren’t you? But you do a lot more. You govern the world’s routine; we wake up at your behest and sleep at your command. You are the pervasive reminder that we are getting older, that time is slipping away. In a way, you are the executioner of nature’s greatest will.But, you are also my constant companion; my inadvertent confidante and harbinger of new hope.

Invariably, I wake up groaning at your arrival.I don’t know if you have realized it yet, but the moment I sense your coming, I start fantasizing about the time when you will leave me so that I can retreat in the comfort of my bed. But the ticking clock forces me to drag myself out of my bed’s warm embrace. You know that mornings have always been unpopular with me. A leisurely pace is the best I can muster at this time of the day. Yet, you keep prodding me with your ticking clock to hurry up and face the world.

Well, once I am out of the house and have some degree of alertness, my adventure with you actually begins. I get out of my building to hail a rickshaw to get to work. Thanks to the location of my building, I don’t usually face problems in getting any. Normally, a bunch of rickshaws swarm at me the moment I wave. I get amused and laugh again at our private joke. Do you remember it? The one where I wish that the these swarming rickshaws could be replaced by swarming eligible suitors or swarming high paying jobs. I know I know, I am too funny. As the rickshaw driver starts to drive, I plug in my ear phones and listen to the the music of my choice blended with the cacophony of Mumbai’s streets.

I reach office in half an hour and then my computer takes me over. The next nine odd hours always surprise me in their shaping. At times they leave me highly fulfilled. At other times, they simply frustrate me. Switching on my computer, meeting with my team, discussion with my manager, calls with the client, lunch at the cafeteria; this is what happens everyday but the outcome differs. To the unassuming eye, these nine hours would be the crux of my existence. But you know me better than that. This is not how you set your tone.

You make sure that there are moments of simple pleasures stashed between the hours of frenzied activities. A kiss from my mom before I leave for work, a cheery good morning from a friend on the phone, boss’s encouraging nod on doing a good job, being reminded that someone is thinking of you and smiling; you do know how to get me going. You lend a patient ear to all my thoughts and plans for myself. At least once a day, you catch me pondering over the purpose of my life. You don’t miss my rueful look when I see homeless people sleeping on the road. And you join me in rolling eyes when you see me arguing with some idiot. Above all, you graciously keep adding items to the never ending list of things I want to do. Be it learning haiku or visiting Peru, you never ask if I am ever going to do these things. You let me be with my own whims.

You stay with me when I return home and chatter with my parents. You know I like to watch TV until late, after my family has retired for the night. You also know, that TV is not what I am interested in. I just like those few moments of peace, the pleasure of my own company. After my eyes refuse to stay open, you send me off to my dreams and leave me there, only to return with new promises in a few hours.

Written in response to a prompt on Daily prompt – Rare Medium