We Never Change

2 days to go before I head off to Calcutta for a new life, in a new place, with new people. and I'm here, living it up at the Allahabad Bank branch, waiting for my loan sanction. The odd call/sms enlivens the mind from time to time, but nothing helps quite like what follows.

Sitting there haplessly, one couldn't help but overhear ambient conversations.
An eager voice starts the cult 'Deewar' dialogue, and apparently nobody notices. It starts off again, this time louder, and succeeds in reaching the rather flimsily 'edited' punchline. A real bad PJ it was, but still elicited the geedar-kutta laughter that I and my guild so pride ourselves with.
At that moment, I believed in the essential constancy of our being, transcending boundaries of position and time. To elaborate, if I'm a dog by nature, then by all probability and by His grace, no matter where I end up in life, the people I join, my tail shall find a way to flex itself doggy style. Comforting this thought is, when mortal transience seems to rule the mind.

The Cloak of Days Gone Past

Standing at the passport office queue at 7:43am for a counter slated to open at 9:30 can be daunting for the best of us. So, as is very often the case with lifelines thrown by Him, along came something majorly insignificant to add value to the whole experience. Standing 2 steps in front of a Nidhi Razdan look alike girl, perhaps I was perfectly placed under a sepia tinting hemi-cylindrical plastic roof. Viewing the sky and other objects through it added a sense of antiquity which made the flying by planes reminiscent of man's first flight; the building in front of it a reflection of Victorian heights, and in all, produced a sense of the past in a very living equality with the present.

For perhaps obvious reasons this led me to the case where this might have been true with things more animate than those mentioned before. A look back at life, floating between many time dimensions, yet retaining its essential character; at us, moving beyond yesterday's boundaries, yet remaining essentially us.

Hawas Ras!

Submerged we were today, in this glorious 10th ras!

Details in later edits. Last minute paints beckon me, part of my shot at functional immortality.
Yes, more, much more, later!

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These are stolen moments from my wonderful days at iimc! Hecticity runs in the veins of those who dare to 'manage', so here i am; high on a sense of academic diligence coupled with genuine camaraderic bliss. Not to mention sleep deprivation, with all its fascinating charms. :)

Returning to my encounter with hawas ras:
Contrary to any sacrilegious/scandalous views that may be popping in ur head, this was a journey with 2 of the most amazing people I've known; people whom i've been blessed to have as part of my extended family. And Hawas = lust = point 1.a) or 3.a)b) here.
(Lost in translation? Maybe.)

After previous yaatras to chandni chowk and CP, it was now karol bagh's turn to face our music. The food (albeit the 'ganesh ki machhli' cutting!) was nice, and the sights, sounds, the spirit and all that encompasses the senses, were brilliant.

Hawas ras arrived in its custom made thass coated self, with a hypothetical situation analysis of the 3 of us being 'kutte ke pille', followed by ''hawasi kutte ke pille", and then "kutte ke hawasi pille". We were all kinda high on the significance of the event, the history, and all that remains. So little and also so much.
The pinnacle of hawas rasiya-giri was the introduction of our latest imaginary friend, Mr. (H)awasthi.
With that, we knew the maxima was reached, we knew, to quote from that other most wonderful time of my life, "The moment shall soon pass us; after that we will be mere mortals."

Respectfully we bid adieu to our visiting ras, and promised it we'll meet again, and again, and again.

The rest of that day was nice, as it should've been I'm sure.

Oh and yes, almost forgot.
Hawas ras is that which adds a sense of loving, longing, living to every passing moment of our existence. It is that which frees the mind to see a million lights wherever He chooses. It is all that lends meaning and purpose, with a sense of graceful perspective.

That, is my hawas ras.
And I hope to bump into Mr. Hawasthi again, sometime, somewhere.


Cheers duniya!