Perspectives...

Watching the hues of the sunset,   Walking barefoot on lush green grass, Smelling the earth on a rainy day,   Receiving the support of an old friend, Feeling the comfort of a hot cuppa tea,   Reading a great book &  taking something away from it, Sharing someone's grief,   Helping your parents see the world, Tending to the beautiful garden,   Filling up water in the bird-feeder, Listening to silence,   Saying a kind word, Travelling to the unknown,   Accepting uncertainty, Having a fresh perspective,    Giving in all it's forms, What is success if not...   

We are forced to be enlightened,    otherwise it will drive us crazy...

My husband stomps out of the bathroom, while venturing out to his first ever firing range experience - "I have decided that I am not going to hold myself back anymore". We both looked at each other for a good 20 seconds. I felt a shift. Although, a firing range experience is not entirely what springs me out of bed, it is as esoteric as kundalini yoga or chakra cleaning is to him. But I thought about it for a long time after he left. Admist my books, journal and pens - thinking gives me immense joy. What did he really mean? I knew exactly what he meant but I wanted to play this out more, a lot more.  I have known my husband for 15 years now, we were two little kids who had a thing for each other. 15 years and counting, we had learnt newer and innovative ways to hold ourselves back. We learnt new fears, newer liabilities, new things we could lose, relationships that needed us to adjust, jobs that required us follow a directed route in lieu of "everything under the su...

I sink down again, myriad of images,    from events past and future fears. Shackled and chained,   freedom is what i seek.  And then I feel my heart beat at the tip of my fingers,   the silence between the words. The images are gone,   I feel free again... Life is but a pursuit of awareness,    when every cell in the body feels alive. And the mind rests,      The dialogue is now self to self,  And the mind rests some more...

…arriving at the question itself is an adventure. Those who are exploring this question right at this time would know. It’s not a frivolous question; I find this question to be the convergence point of all of life's experiences. It’s a good question to ask. The fact that we dis-identified solely with our body for a moment and can even imagine that there can be something beyond, is a miraculous and awesome news for this planet. Four years back, I was Priyanka Chatterjee- an Indian, a Bengali, doing this profession, living the life of an expat, i had some descriptive and a set of defining attributes. I liked this, I didn't like that. I liked these people, that set was just not good enough for me. That was my story. The story of who I am. It’s only when i stepped out of my story for a second that i could see it as that. That’s the moment when i realized there must really different take to who i really am. Is there a possibility that who i really am is not a story but something...

Why do I not feel whole?   There are bruises and wounds all over me. They are not mine,   But they belong to us nevertheless. Every child killed, every woman raped, every family separated,   Makes me less and less.

I am a part of it,     but still fighting, struggling to go against. I am exasperated, I fight some more,   trying hard not to give up. In a moment of complete despair,    I surrendered completely. It took me along and there was no looking back, I kept floating through the rocks and shards,   and the sunsets and the sunrises. I just kept floating...