Searching for Ghosts

A conversation among friends about ghosts and haunted places stirred an old fascination. They laughed at my eagerness to see a ghost for once and my deep regret that I had never seen one anywhere.

How do I explain that I have been searching for ghosts since I was five years old. 

My masi had died and there was no explanation that made sense for where she had gone after she was dead. She was a person. How could she just be nothing because she was dead?

She is a star now, someone said. 

I told all my friends that now there was a new star in the sky. Oh! then my dadi would be a star too because she too is dead, chimed another. Oh, then there should be so many new stars we realized. No, it didn’t make sense. Maybe only some became stars.

What of the others?

They became ghosts.

Wow. Then we would feel them around, wouldn’t we? They were there in stories, but then not all stories were real. So if ghosts too were not real, where did she go?

Maybe she was born again as a baby somewhere. We may never meet her or know her if we do. But she’ll be there living a new life again; and that was the balm to my grieving heart.

Over the years even this logic seemed to grow feeble and week. But I still don’t want to accept that she had one life and now she was just ‘gone’. Only a memory and nothing else.

Logically I had to accept, there is nothing more to life than a short time on the planet as this identity. Then we also become memories. And there is nothing we can do about it but ensure that we just become longer, stronger, and better memories for those who remain.

And yet, I can’t help searching for those who are gone-in the sky, in the shadows, or in the eyes of strangers. 

And hoping that maybe, just maybe there is more to life.

The last days of our teens

My daughter is a teenager.

She has big plans and bigger dreams. When I hear her talking of where she wants to study next, the countries she wants to travel to, the cities she plans to live in, the kind of house she wants to build....... one part of my mind says-Yeah, I also thought that way, once upon a time

Those were the dreams.

This is the reality.

The reality isn’t all bad. The sad part is that me (and a lot of us) have become too jaded to dream. We have resigned on our hopes. We have given up on trying so many things.

These are the last two days of our teens.

Let’s celebrate today, before the years turn into twenties.

Let’s go out and party, laugh at the same old jokes and sing the same old songs, just as tunelessly at full volume.

Let’s look at life with hope, waiting for the adventures to unfold, for special people to come in and for new friendships to unfurl.

Let’s try believing once more that there is a world out there waiting for us to step in and make the change.

Let’s celebrate friends and friendships again. To prioritize them above tasks and responsibilities and remind ourselves again just how much fun it is just to have fun.

We can still dream about all that we still need to do and discover.

Let’s start with some more hope.

Our days of twenties are right here.

The years to make the dreams of the teens come true.

Let’s live them to the very best.

Winter Solstice

The sun was still in the sky when I left from office today.

It was such a welcome sign. The winter solstice is behind us. The days are going to stay brighter for longer.

The ‘half-glass-empty’ person in me chimes right in-that means the years is over. The kid goes back to college in 10 days. We’ll all be soon a year older! Another year gone and what did I do? I still need to lose 10 kgs. I still need to write my book. I still need to complete the M.A I signed up for. I still need to complete the story I was supposed to finish last Sunday!

Why am I so worked about dates? The calendar is just something we made up to measure time. The sun and the moon don’t give a fig about the years and the months.

Why is it so important for us to track and measure and count? Maybe because for us time is limited. (I am strictly not thinking of office login and logout times or project deadlines here, although it’s hard not to-we live by them). This whole concept of living, not knowing the literal deadline is so unsettling. How do I know whether I am going too fast or too slow? If I try to all the things I want to, I miss out on the precious moments doing nothing, spending time arguing with my daughter, reading, watching Harry Potter for the 65^th time with her. And yet if I do that, how will I complete the blog post for today, get up in time to beat the traffic tomorrow morning, save up for their future?

Live for this moment or slog for the years ahead?
The present or the future?

What is the future anyway?

That hateful alarm at 6.40 am!
And yet, I am grateful to wake up to another day. 

That’s what this year has been. It has taught me not to take the future for granted. And to love the present.