Over The Rainbow

I found myself slightly lost today. I was far away from my car and work place. I had little money, I did not know the area and I had 60 seconds worth of credit on my mobile phone. I did not know how to get home.

I had become a creature of routine and I was lost outside my comfort zones.

This got me thinking.

I pondered about my position as a wanderer.

I have always felt like I am a wanderer. Never settling for too long in one place. Always ready to move on. Never understanding the word home.

I have been reticent to lay down roots. I am afraid of stagnation. I am afraid that I will grow bored of where I am and begin to resent it. And yet now, at the age of 29, I am afraid of wandering to far.

I panicked at being lost today. What does that say?

How strange it is to feel both wary of stepping out of ones comfort zones and yet be also afraid of staying in it.

And so maybe I am neither a wanderer nor home bird but rather this ambivalent neurotic who dances the dance of one step in and one step out of the circle of consolation.

I believe that to wander does not mean that one is lost. As a wanderer is always looking around himself, noting a road here, a bush there…a hill yonder. The wanderer is aware of his journey. There is purpose in his heart. And although the purpose may not be fully formed, the intent is good.

And the weary wanderer may stop sometimes at a place…find shelter and few friendly faces. Maybe I am that weary traveler who has become comfortable in this foreign land.

Maybe it is time to move on. I cannot see a future here. Certainly not for a family. This is topic for another time. But I will say that the values embodied by this land is no longer wholesome or worthwhile.

In my next journey, I will not be alone. My membership ( as a dear friend puts it) of the bachelors club is soon ending. My life is about to change.

It is strange….in some ways, I am glad I will no longer need to travel alone. I am lucky to find someone that shares the same values and interests as myself. However, another part of me is scared of wandering into the unknown, knowing that I will soon be responsible not only for myself but also for another person and God-willing, a few little ones in the years to come.

So, maybe I am not this undecided fool of an ambivalent neurotic. Maybe I am guy who is struggling with the calling of his heart to be a wanderer and the calling of another part of his heart that asks him to devote himself to his family and loved ones.

I don’t know the answer to this. All I can say is that for once in my life, I am thinking of wandering not for myself but for my wife and future partner…for my future family’s sake.

It makes me feel all grown up.

To make one last journey…and hopefully at the end of it, find home. And it really has to be the last journey. Nothing is worse for a family than having to up sticks every so often. It is time to lay down roots…to embrace a place and country so that my future family can do the same.

It feels like an end of an era…an end to being a wanderer.

I hope I have learnt enough about myself in all my journeys that I can stop for a bit now.

I hope I have travelled far and wide enough to know some of the ways of the world and where the good patches of grass are so that I can maybe impart some of my knowledge to a few little future wanderers.

And maybe once that is over and I am no longer needed, I can pick up where I left off, take turns with my wife in choosing places to wander to, find that place where I was lost today, bask in exhilaration of being so absolutely and utterly helpless and continue the wandering journey of finding myself.

Written in dedication to Nisha, my future wife and partner. Know that there will be times when I will be a poor travel companion but also know that I will be by your side from now on until the end of my days. I will go where you go.

I believe we struggle to live in darkness. Sure…sure…it maybe a tad inconvenient to be milling around in complete darkness. I would grant that the light we bring to the night prevents a fair few falls and stumbles. There surely must be one foolish soul in the world for every second of every day howling expletives in the dark and cursing the fact that his little toe had to meet the sharp corner of the table leg in the fading light of evening. And so, although I do agree that light in darkness is to prevent battery of little toes the world over, I am equally of the opinion that there lies something deeper in the philosophy of light in darkness and it is not merely for the sake of practicality…

But then again, can there be too much light for the night?

Our generation has grown far too accustomed to the sterile and uninspiring fluorescent lighted world of our cities. We tolerate the night with the help of our lighted rooms and homes. We have forgotten to look to the stars and the moon for illumination. Indeed, in the presence of such artificial light, the heavens, as if in great disappointment, fade and seem dimmer than ever before. In our pursuit to make more money and more hours in a day, we have inadvertently turned our wonderful night into day. We have, like everything else touched by human ignorance and greed, indulged in absolute overkill…

Our forefathers emulated the subtle glow of the moon in candles and lanterns. There was harmony between the encroaching shadows and the flickering light. The world just seems to slow down a bit. The bustle of the day melts quietly into the crisp night air. Some of my most treasured memories were formulated in this great interplay of light and darkness. It is as if ones being has been given permission to lay down arms and drop all defenses in favour of rest and peace. The mind wanders and journeys into thoughts never ventured in the light of day. Inspiration and disinhibition have never been closer cousins. The cloak of the night time wraps and bundles us with anonymity and security in one fell swoop and yet frees the mouth to voice mutinous thoughts of freedom from the slave ship of work and day.

The mind remembers the night fondly. The heart misses the twinkle of stars and yearns to bath in the moonlight. I remember night car rides when young and falling asleep in the back seats of my dad’s old datsun…looking at the moon and wondering why she was following us. I remember blackouts with candles and walking around the garden in the pitch of night…I remember the shadows of puppets shaped by hands cast by candlelight. I remember lone walks in the night and not so lonely gatherings of friends and family by some hawker side table. I remember long drives by the sea and the fires burning on the beach for the fisherman out at sea…a reminder of where to return to. I remember lying on my back at the foot hills of a mountain and staring at a sea of stars. But most of all, I remember and cherish all the wonderful conversations, people and thoughts of the night.

I cannot help feeling as if we all now need and depend on the bright lights of the city. I wonder why that is…are we so afraid of darkness? Or are we afraid of the uncertainty of the thoughts and conversations we may undertake in the absence of our neon comfort zones? Maybe we have become lonely people and the darkness only seems to reinforce that notion? The age we live in has made us more distant and lonely than ever before. I have often felt that one could be in the most populated and busiest city in the world and yet feel so lonely. How then will the brightest lights of the busiest city convey to us a message that we are not alone? This would only be a false consolation of sorts.

The night was meant to be in darkness except for a few sprinkles of light…it was meant to be such so that we can grow in it…so that our souls could unfold in it. The fear of loneliness or leaving the comforts of merely surviving should never prevail and prevent us from truly living.

Truly, the cheapskate in me can really shine at times. A recent stay in London could not have highlighted this any better. Ok…I was not paying for the room and there was a tight budget but I sometimes wonder about low I can actually go…

Apparently…pretty low by the sounds of the following story…

I arrived in an unnamed hotel on Baker street just after 11pm on a chilly Tuesday night. It looked fairly decent from the outside, although, I must admit that I rather foolishly overlooked the most telling sign of hotel standards the world over…there was a handwritten sign on the window which stated…

Single Rooms from £30

Now….a room in LONDON for £30 sounds awfully dodgy. At a price like that, you half expect to find a few hairy burly men in your bedroom cupboard just waiting to pounce on your tush and sell you into the booming gay sex trade. Worse still…the sign was written by hand on a piece of paper…surely if there ever was sign of prestige and luxury, this would be it!

Tired from a long day, I paid the receptionist without a second thought of the dubious and ominous sign outside only to find that my room was in the basement. It was musty, red and looked like something resembling of an old sanitary towel…with a smell to match. The toilet had no ventilation…unless you call my lungs ventilation ( A filter possibly!) and although I have very little first hand experience of sewers, it smelled uncannily like one! I had to take deep breaths of air before entering the toilet less I puked. The carpet felt like it had layer upon layer of dust and the pillows smelled strange….a cocktail mixture of various bodily fluids of course. Worse of all…the walls were paper thin…I could hear the people next door talking and snoring.

Perfect!

I must admit though, all this got me thinking.

I heard that a lot of the guest stay for sometime. I met a few of them in the corridor and the stairway and they did not seem like they were here on a holiday. I realised that this room must have be home for quite a few of these people. The first place they stayed on reaching this country. I imagine it must have been a very lonely and sad place to be…the walls have so little life in them. It must have been difficult to find a place to rent and maybe doing a few odd jobs and staying in such a place was the only option for some. I suppose it would be better than sleeping rough or in a hostel. It was difficult to spend a night here let alone a month or two. I wondered about the dreams the previous occupant of this room had….maybe it was just a little dream to rent their own room somewhere…but I suppose for some, that dream would mean the world and achieving it would be difficult. I realised that I was so very lucky to have my own place to stay and how often I have taken it all for granted. I guess its so easy to get caught up in our own little pursuits and dreams that we loose sight of how truly lucky we are to not need to worry about where the next meal is going to come from or whether I will have a place to stay tomorrow.

A reminder to not sweat the small stuff, be thankful for all that I have and accept the pot holes of life with grace and wisdom knowing that no matter the calamity, there are others who are suffering more.

Its humbling to note that we may not always have things our way but that they are always worse things to have and not have out there…

Here’s hoping that the previous occupant of the basement room with the sewer toilet had found a better place or life and achieved his dream along the way….

The starry night sky never fails to awe me. It is unsurprising that almost every culture and civilization were so captivated by the blanket of stars before them, they named them and made stories of them. There is something altogether heartwarming to realise that the Orion I look up to today is the same Orion 34,000 years ago and will be much the same 2 million years from now. Orion, unchanging and steadfast, his pattern of stars unmistakable has become a familiar old friend, ever present as I gaze up into heavens night after night. A wry smile spreads across my face as I my eyes recognise the Hunter before me…I whisper…I know you…I know your story.
There is a deep affinity and longing for the night sky. The ancients felt it and made stories of them. I feel it and find stories of my own to feel closer to something that is altogether to a great distance away.
What is it about us that endeavours to feel closer to something so far away?
Are the whispers of ‘I know your story’ actually the projection of the inner most self…deep yearnings to be known, our story heard, our life acknowledged? And…maybe…just maybe…in our humility and unconsciousness…we were always trying to say.. ‘Do you know my story….let me tell you, less it be lost forever!’
Such are the basics of our relationships…to know and to be known. A fundamental need to belong, find similarities and yet demarcate our own individuality. It is in our design…and yet it extends to the heavens….starry nights and indeed to something larger and greater than ourselves.
Mayhap this relationship we seek is not with the design itself but with it’s creator. There is something ancient about this notion…Can it be just pure awe in man? The psychology of man and the need to search for a higher power to look to at times of distress?
Or are we designs of the creator himself…?And if so, maybe it is part of our design to search and yearn for a relationship not just with our own fellow humans, the world around us but also with the Creator himself.
To know, be known and not forgotten…just like the stars in the starry night sky.

Written in dedication to the memory of Cassiopeia.
February 2007
Nottingham

As the sun will rise against the night,
As the stars in the sky shine bright,
As the rivers will never run dry,
My heart will cling to your shadow and sigh,
For though a thousand grieving tears may separate us,
My soul will love you and endure the long goodbye.

Spring 2004

On a prayer, in a song,
I hear your voice,
And it keeps me hanging on,
Raining down against the wind,
I’m reaching out,
Till we reach the circle’s end,
When you come back to me again.

BD

Remember the old saying of
When money is lost, nothing is lost,
When health is lost, something is lost,
When personality is lost, all is lost.

One of the saddest, most profoundly tragic illnesses I know is that of dementia. A progressive loss of all ones functions…memory, speech, coordination….everything that makes us the person we are. It ravages the personality leaving an empty shell…a void where there was once a great person. It makes the most familiar and cherished person a stranger. It is the thief coming at the autumn of our life to rob our deepest secrets and warm memories. I am the witness and the watchman…a reporter of sorts for the tragedy of slow decay. I have long felt helpless in the face of such utter sadness. I have struggled with the notion of a dignified death.
I have been thinking about this recently…
There is something altogether alluring about death…it is the final stage before the great unknown. World religions have preached relentlessly about preparing for time after death. There is much truth in this as we humans give so little thought to death and to loss. We deny it adamantly…leaving the challenging and anxiety provoking task of facing the prospect of death to the end.
Reflections of death is not just about the process of dying….rather….it is about loss. Loss…like dementia and death can be catastrophic. Life in itself is a series of losses and gains….albeit occasionally more losses than gains. Is there something about the way we think about these losses and gains that hold sway in our general well being….in our ability to find peace? Do we dwell so much on the merits of the gains and the tragedies of the losses that we lose focus of the big picture? I recall the words of Kipling in ‘If”;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
Do we miniaturise our world and magnify our troubles forgetting that such thoughts are mere drops in the sea of our consciousness?
It is true that the ups and downs of life takes a great toll on our being…but it is after all the great teacher of life.
We are that person today because of yesterday….and maybe the losses of yesterday and today, reflected deeply with insight, will forge the person of tomorrow…one that can face greater losses like death with peace. And surely, despite the difference of our beliefs, great courage and peace must be mustered if the full gravity of the unknown is to be faced post humously…be it in the face of the glory of God, reincarnation or whatever we believe in.
I believe that it must start now…the path to the end of the beginning has already began. And..No…I am not shouting that the end is nigh with a placard or holy book in my hand…
I am merely saying that our approach in life is everything….much like our personality. And much like the crippling effects of dementia, the experiences of life, both good and bad, if we are not careful, may render our life meaningless, destined to a slow and progressive death….robbing us of the personality which we could really be.
This leads me to the notion that death and life are intertwined and that as soon as life begins…so does death.
There is as much in the dignified death as there is in the dignified life.
Dementia like death is something we cannot always fathom or rationalise. It is not fair or just. For now, without a cure…it is a loss we must bear….loved ones, friends, carers, doctors and the person himself alike….
For it is the method of our endurance that will ennoble our life and end.

Portia:
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
-Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Scene 1- Shakespeare

Its been 10 years since I left home. Its been a long time. Far too long even for a self-professed wandering soul. I pondered on this recently. I thought about my experiences in life and the lessons learned so far. I reflected on how different things might be if I had stayed in my little town of KK for all those years. Moving from place to place has taken its toll but I would like to think that I am stronger and richer for it. I have met all kinds of people from all walks of life, read many books and listened to life story after life story. I have seen far away places and walked cliff paths thousand of miles from home. I slept in many beds and packed my few belongings too many times. I am by all accounts a nomad of the world desperately trying to find greener pastures.
I thought that this would be a good moment to list all the things I have learned so far in the hope that it would serve as a reminder to myself when the days are dark and the soul is weary from all its traveling.
I have learned of sad lonely times when you cannot see an end…but only trust and know that there is always better times ahead and that everything happens for a reason. I have learned of fate and the importance of heeding the signs life shows us and giving our everything for something we believe in. I learned how to be passionate and yet temper such passion with an ounce of rationality.
I have learned the importance of listening to my heart and following my dreams no matter what others might say or how they might put me down. I have learned that ignoring my heart will only bring unhappiness.
I have learned of the importance of self-reflection in the hope that one day I may truly understand myself. I have learned of the many masks we all wear to hide from others and mostly ourselves. We are our worst enemy.
I have learned that I have been searching to find home all my life. I now know where it is and I am trying to get there. I have learned that finding home is about finding peace. It is a peace that comes from loving yourself, your family, friends and everybody around you. I have learned how peace is inextricably tied to my journey of faith and spirituality.
I have learned that my definition of success is not about riches or status but simply about being a highly developed and enlightened human being…one that will look to the good times and bad times with equal measure, finding profound lessons in it and being remembered for the peace and calm in which he rode it all.
I have learned about love and the pain of losing it. I have shared my life and feelings many a times and never lost. I have learned to be vulnerable and not feel insecure. I have learned that soul mates and kindred spirits are like gold dust and that we should treasure every single one of them.
And of the small but no less important things…I have learned how to be alone(which is more difficult than it seems), look to the stars for comfort and live life everyday like it is my last….saying and doing the things that truly matters.
Life indeed changes us…
“Much is taken but much abides….”
“Somethings lost but somethings gained……in living everyday”
The road ahead is long…there is so much more to learn.
13/1/2007, Nottingham

Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Tennyson
1842