Tag: perspective (Page 13 of 17)

Lessons from watching 31 Sunrises

June 2, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

As an effort to sensitise myself about the unfolding mystery of dawn, I challenged myself to wake up every day before sunrise and write a page about it. To step it up even a bit further, I wrote the whole page with my non dominant left hand.

Since I have been traveling in the month of May, I had the fortune of witnessing sunrises at varying latitudes, longitudes and altitudes. I was at beaches, piers, highways, temples, in bustling cities and rustic hinterlands. Witnessing and documenting the experience of sunrise at all these places has been a great creative journey.
Today, I wish to share what I learnt from the whole experience, which was part of ‘The Power of Everyday’ project for the month of May.

My learnings :

1) The Sky has a Personality

No two sunrises were ever alike. I feel it holds true for ever since the sky has existed. Most of us wake up inside a house and never get to witness a sunrise, but believe me, even if you watch the same sky from the same place on two successive days, they would be quite peculiar.
The sky is alive.

2) We have become color blind

For as long as I can remember, every single landscape drawing of a little kid in school has a blue sky.
But if one takes initiative to watch a sunrise with a kid, they’ll be mesmerised by the range of colors exhibited in the sky. I would only come up with newer descriptions of colors, just when I thought I had exhausted my imagination. Such is the splendor exhibited in the sky.
I had to compare the shades in the sky to popcorn yellow, cashew white, Bunsen burner blue, misty Clementine, scarlet red, princely purple etc.
The experience truly enlivened my imagination.
We should all spend some time transcribing colors of the sky !

3) The Celestial Game

We have grown up to believe that the sun ‘rises’ in the east. But in reality, it is the earth that turns from east to west and experiences night and day in the process.
While watching a sunrise in rural Thailand, I imagined it to be not just ‘sun rise’ but also ‘star-set’.
The countless twinkling stars are outshone by the might of the sun. With the rising sun, stars disappear.
I would see Venus set every morning in the North-West horizon, as the cresent moon rose, only to be obliterated by daylight.
All of a sudden I would see a morning not just as sunrise. I got sensitised to more celestial phenomenon.

4) Clouds- Unsung Heroes

Clouds are the true painters of the sky. The most mundane sunrise I’ve witnessed was one where there wasn’t a cloud in sight. And the best sunrise I experienced was at a sunrise point at Samet Nangshe in Thailand, where I could see a storm in one part of the horizon and spent clouds hover just behind the behemoth of limestone piers as the sun rose. It was one breathtaking experience.
Clouds scatter and diffuse sunlight, infusing the sky with hues of their lively imagination.
They’re the true painters of the canvas of the sky.

5) Sounds

The transition from the buzz of insects at night to the rousing awakening of birdsong is a lesson in dynamics for a musician. A simmering symphony of nature orchestrated by the sun’s inevitable advent.
I always wondered what the birds sang about in the morning. Then one day, I realised, maybe they are just singing in surprise of the daily unfolding of colors in the sky. Encrypted in their song are reams and reams of passionate poetry.

6) We are losing our Sky

It was disheartening to witness a sunrise in India. Our bleached skies look pale and diseased. Every single day, we deprive ourself of the wonder the sky could be. Our actions are polluting the sky and if we don’t act soon, we will lose a priceless gift of nature.

Sometimes I wish,
If I Bicycle more, maybe there will be less pollution, and we might see one more star in the sky.
If a billlion of us choose to do the same,
Imagine how a sky with a billion stars would look like?

I hope we all take collective action, and reclaim the sky from our own doing.

Let us celebrate each sunrise with the same enthusiasm as birds and trees do.
And with each sunset, lose ourself in the infinity of the sky.

I leave you with that thought,
In sincere hope of fostering,
Existential awe.

The art of listening

May 31, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

After a 52 day sojourn in Thailand, I reached India a couple of weeks ago. I had the fortune of staying with my friend’s family in Kolkata. I was fed home cooked food with utmost love by his mother for a whole week.
Both her sons are working in different cities and her husband is a working man who isn’t home for the most part of the day.
I would love to spend time with her in the afternoons, which she would usually spend alone, all by herself. She enjoyed my company too, and shared so many of her stories with me. It felt as if she didn’t have anyone to speak to for a long time.

On the first day she seemed to be a shy and introverted woman. But as she got to spend time with someone who would listen to her patiently, she opened up and spoke freely with joy.

During my stay in Kolkata, I also met with a school friend who’s been preparing for an entrance exam for a year at home.
We met up and he spoke on and on for hours on end. I felt happy to be there and give him company, for it felt as if he had not spoken to someone openly for a long time.

While in Delhi, I met a brave friend of mine who’s mother has been bed ridden for four years now. We used to play a lot of music together and share great brotherhood.
He also, had so much to talk about when we met. He spoke of his struggle, the hardship, his mother’s fighting spirit and his newfound belief in Buddhism. Despite his extroverted nature, I knew he had few people who he could talk to about matters of the heart. His sharing felt like a catharsis.

On my last day in Delhi, I found great company in another close friend’s Mother. When she came to know about my ambition to bicycle up North in the mountains, she started sharing her suggestions with spirited encouragement. Over time, she opened up and talked about her dreams, aspirations and nostalgia. Within half an hour, it felt as if she had shared so much of her life in the conversation.

These experiences got me wondering about a person’s desire for expression.
Anyone who has heard their own voice in a recording would say they do not like it at all. It sounds weird and whiney. One might sing to himself when alone, but would not record himself and listen back. It doesn’t sound as good !

But that is merely the physical aspect of our voice. Our true voice is in our thoughts and actions. The act of speaking merely helps to communicate.

Most of us are convinced that we do not have a good voice.
But boy, do we not love to be listened to?

In that moment, one forgoes the idea whether they have a good physical voice or not. While speaking to someone, what matters most is the voice in the heart.

It is tragic to see that despite our hyper connectedness, many of us do not have a patient, judgement free space/ friend to speak to. The voice deep inside our heart never finds expression.
But the moment, one finds a conducive space, even the most introverted of people share their life and experiences animatedly.

I wonder, maybe the best gift one could give to someone, especially to the elderly, is to just lend them a patient ear and listen with intent. There is plenty of learning and avenues to grow in the exercise.

Listening is an act of compassion.

And sometimes, the easiest way to be accepted and loved is to just listen, with an open heart.

A sleepless night

May 30, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Two days ago, I started my journey from Delhi towards the mountains up North. While I have experience of touring on a bicycle in Thailand, this was my maiden attempt of touring in India.

There is an uncertainty about this mode of travelling. On most days, I would not know where I would get to sleep at night.
In Thailand, I had the option of staying at Buddhist temples. So even if I did not know which town I would end up in at the end of the day, I only had to find a temple to spend the night safely.

In India, it turned out to be much difficult. I did not know where I could stay at night. Since my motive is to see as much of the local culture and community as possible, I try to avoid staying at hostels.
On the first day, I looked at the map, early in the afternoon to check where I would tentatively end up.
I saw a village named, ‘Gharaunda’ on the map about 40kms away. ‘Gharaunda’ is a Hindi word that translates to a ‘little cosy home’ in English.
All of a sudden I felt a sense a relief dawn on me. I thought as if the name of the village was a sign. I thought as if I am cycling towards a cosy little home.
And I continued on.

On the way I saw a board :
‘Karnal – 50 kms.’

On looking at the board, I realised that an old friend used to stay in Karnal. I had no clue I was going to pass through Karnal so it came as a pleasant surprise. I called my friend only to learn that he’s been transferred to another place but his mother still lived there.
He called his mother and arranged a stay for me.
That night, I truly slept in a ‘Gharaunda’, a cosy little home.

The next day, I found out I will pass through the city of Mohali. I asked a friend who’s studying there if I could stay with him. He happily agreed to host me.
Again, I found a cosy little home, the second day in a row.

After bicycling so much everyday, the moment you find a place, you fall asleep instantly. Having found a place to sleep, I rested myself ready to be taken to dreamland.
It all works out doesn’t it?

In bed, I got thinking about the landscape I had passed through in the past two days. It was the most polluted landscape I have ever seen.
Within the first hour of cycling out of Delhi, I saw many homeless labourers sleeping on footpaths.
It was an unsettling sight because in my mind, I had no clue where I would be sleeping that night. I wondered if I would have to sleep on the pavements like my friends sleeping on the roadside.

I am grateful to have found shelter on both days since I left Delhi. I used to think that since I bicycle so much under the full sun, my hard work earns me a bed to sleep on in some mysterious way.

But my labourer friends, who would work everyday in the summer, who would feel much more tired, and be much poorly fed,
Always have the same shelter. A six feet feet space on a pavement under a flyover.

There is a tragic fixity in the fate of the downtrodden.
No matter how hard they work, they will probably sleep at the same pavement all their life.
All they can do is, work hard enough to earn a little food and a deathly sleep that takes them through the noise of traffic at night.

I write this sleeping on a comfortable bed at my friend’s hostel. I am tired after an 8 hour cycling day.
But the experience of witnessing the life of daily labourers in Delhi up and close,
Only leaves me sleepless.

On gifting sincerely

May 28, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

Recently my mother got retired from service. She organised a little get together with all her colleagues and their family. And as the tradition goes, people came with gifts wrapped in shiny wrapping papers, bouquets and some envelops with money. The get together was warm and candid. It served the social purpose .

The next morning I was hoping to see my mom relieved and light since she didn’t have to go to office anymore. Instead I found her a bit lost sitting amid all those boxes and flowers and envelops wondering what to do with them. The minimalist she is, I felt all of these lovingly gifted things weighed her down than lift her spirit.
I looked at one of the envelops and I wondered, ‘ What if instead of money, there were a handwritten note from a colleague who expressed how she has helped them in their Journey together?’ That would lift her spirit and bring a smile on her face for sure.
Physical gifts occupy space in the house and seldom stay in the mind as a memory. A simple letter with an emotional investment stays in the heart for the whole life.
It takes just as much time to reminisce the past you shared and write about it as going to a store to choose something to gift.
The former costs nothing yet reaps you dividends of sincere love from the recipient.

The next time I give someone an envelope, it will have much more emotional investment in it.
A letter.
For I want space in their heart.

What do you think ?

On friendship beyond context

May 27, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

I had the fortune of meeting a friend yesterday in Delhi. We used to play a lot of music together until a few years ago.
That was the context we grew closer in.
But despite being far away physically and not playing music together for so long, we both felt our friendship had grown over the years. It was a deeply reassuring feeling.

We made great conversation over a car ride and he dropped me at the metro station.
There I met my old student who I used to help learn how to play drums.
We reminisced about how our classes used to be, full of openness and fun. We used to discuss problems of Mathematics, philosophy, logic and science and learnt drumming in the process.
We both were students in those 40 minute sessions.
Now, I am no longer an official teacher to him. But we’re great friends, despite the distance.

These interactions made me realise how one can make the choice of fostering lasting relationships in life.

We all meet our friends in a certain context. We meet them either in school, college, an activity group, while playing sports or at work…you get the picture.

While we are interacting with them in the context we meet them in,
are we open to share our ideas and beliefs beyond the context of our interaction?

Can we talk about how to live a good life, what our dreams are, what we want to change about ourselves and the world around in the same breath as we talk about say pottery, if we met our friend first in a pottery workshop?

The longevity of a relationship is determined by how resilient is it in the face of changing contexts.
We are all growing, ageing, evolving, getting married, changing jobs, chasing dreams, becoming parents…
Can we still talk about minutiae over a margarita, the profoundness in finding purpose in life?

As they say in evolution it all boils down to
‘The survival of the fittest.’

The healthiest of friendships are ones where there is a constancy in love, care and respect for your friend despite the dynamic shifts in contexts life takes us through.

That in my opinion is a fit friendship,
a lasting frienship
A friendship that would truly,
Thrive.

An Unfair Freedom

May 26, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

After a 9 hour delay, the train finally chugged onto platform 6 on New Delhi Railway Station. I quickly alighted from the train and rushed to the luggage compartment to unload my bicycle.

Navigating our way through the sea of people on the platform, we finally reached the parcel office. I got an exit pass for the bicycle and we were free to hit the road.

Outside the railway station, I stopped to affix my pannier bags and backpack onto the bicycle. I had my helmet on and the safety lights Buddha had left for me were flashing intermittently. I put on a reflective jacket to make myself more visible in the traffic.

Quite evidently, it was not a common sight in that area and I was the subject of fascination for those five fleeting minutes. Once I finished fixing the bags, and safety lights I looked up to the stares of a dozen rickshaw pullers. Virtually invisible in the the dark oblivion of their existence, their faces lit up with each flicker of the safety lights on the bike.

Rickshaw pullers have a challenging life in Delhi. They have a tricycle which houses two passengers at the back, sometimes their luggage too. Never do they carry less than a hundred kgs on a trip.
They have to pull an old, ungeared tricycle through the maze of traffic in sweltering heat of summer. It was evening already at that moment but the air was warm and scathing. They are too many in number, fighting for a living that promises just enough food to get by, a space to sleep in their own rickshaw under a flyover and a dreamless sleep earned from exhaustion.
A little life they wrestle out of the spiral of their own fate.

I would find myself to be happy about carrying three big bags on my bicycle around Thailand. I thought I grew strong and tough with that experience. But the sight of these rickshaw pullers annihilated even a tiniest shred of pride I had in my heart.

I am going to bicycle further north from Delhi towards the foothills of the Himalayas. The ride will be mostly uphill and challenging.
But, I have an unfair advantage that life gave me without my asking.

The advantage, of having the freedom to choose my challenges, my struggles.
I have the liberty to take the road I like, of how much weight I want to carry, to stop if I am tired or if find a moment worth capturing.

Comparing it to the misery of a life the rickshaw puller leads where he cannot choose the load he has to carry, the route he wishes to take, to grant himself a modicum of rest to recover,
I felt my challenge was far too easier, for it was a challenge of my own choosing.

I left the scene quite soon, leaving them with a topic to discuss with each other before they had earned enough to call it a night.

I realised that even the freedom to choose a journey full of struggles is a privilege.

For, when your life is interminably leashed to a struggle that your fate brings with it,
And you don’t even have the choice to rest, forget choosing your own struggle,
One feels like the mythical Sisyphus, tasked to roll up a huge stone uphill, that only rolls back downhill eventually.
And every day, my brothers on three wheels, start downhill with full awareness that they will also end up downhill at night, maybe on every night of their lives.
There is never an uphill vantage point for them to take a moment and enjoy.

Helpless, yet grateful,
I pedal on slowly,
With the weight of the realisation,
Of how simple my struggle is.

What time is it Buddha?

May 25, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

I have a little polaroid camera in my bag. Whenever I find a kind and helpful person while travelling, I click a Polaroid picture for them as a gift.
I had the fortune of meeting a kind bicycle mechanic, Nu, in Chiang Mai.
He helped me even when his shop was shut for the Thai new year.
Moved by his desire to help, I clicked him a nice Polaroid picture with one of his cats in his lap.
He took out a marker to write the date at the bottom of the picture.
It read ‘13-4-2561‘

For a moment I was taken aback.
Was it possible that I was time travelling and breached past the time-space continuum to a point in future?

Nu sensed my curious mix of surprise and disbelief.

‘It is the Buddhist calendar date. Don’t worry !’ he shared smilingly.

I was relieved and a tad disappointed at the same time. Wouldn’t it be fun to have time travelled after all !

The year in which we live is also relative to our set of beliefs. I am sure there will be remote tribes where it would be another calendar year, if they believe in calendar years at all.

That night, back at my hostel, I was sitting in the lounge and writing on my laptop. My laptop still displayed the Indian standard time on it while my cellphone had the Thai time.
I looked at the laptop of a friend sitting next to me. Her clock showed the time in Germany. I looked at another friend who was waiting for sunrise in the west coast of USA so that he could call and talk to his family. It was late at night in Thailand but in our minds we also had the time of the places where our friends and family lived.

I wondered, well,
even time, at the same instant,
Is relative to where a person is.

The other day someone shared an article with me that asserted that time is merely a concept of our own making. Our sense of time is a locally agreed upon reality here on earth. Our understanding of time warps when viewed in the grand timelessness of the cosmos.

How do I make sense of time after all these stimuli broadening my perspective within a span of a day, which is also a local cosmic reality.

I found myself in a Buddhist temple the next morning.
Sitting in front of Buddha’s statue, I asked,

‘What year is it now Buddha?’

He chuckled and replied,
‘There is no real answer for that question.’

‘What day is it then?’

‘ It is today.’ he said matter of factly.

‘And what time is it?’

‘It is now.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘The only true, non negotiable, non relative time, in now. No matter where you are on earth, that stands true, doesn’t it?’

‘Hmm…so ‘now’ is the correct time in your opinion.’

‘It is not my opinion. It is a truism.’ he said.

‘I see, Now is the right time.’

‘Yes, Now is the right time, to do what truly matters to you most.’

We shared the same half smile, the Buddha and I.
I clicked a Polaroid picture with the Buddha. I felt no need to put a date stamp on it.

Enlightened by the profoundly simple sermon, I got up with enthusiasm,
‘To do what truly matters to me, in the present moment.’

‘Now.’

On an artist’s state being

May 24, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

‘So what music are you listening to these days?’ I asked my friend Vijay over a phone call.’

‘Ah, I must share this artist’s music with you. His playing is absolutely mesmerising. It is a wedlock of poetic expression with reckless abandon. He plays as if he doesn’t care who is listening or not listening for that matter. He just does his thing. I wonder how long it would have taken him to have that state of being.’

‘Sounds fascinating ! Do share his music with me !’

‘I will, when we hang up.’

And we went on with our friendly, fruitful conversation.

The way Vijay described the musician’s state of being made an impression on me.
I remembered a phrase a dance teacher used to say when people were shy to sway. He would say,

‘Dance as if nobody is watching.’

While that helped people for a while, of course their conscious state of mind came back to them in no time.

But when kids dance, they know the whole world around them is watching. Their expression spouts out in bountiful measure nevertheless.
They don’t dance as if nobody is watching !

Maybe the way to dance best is to dance with a subtle awareness. An awareness that people might be watching. Or not.
Consciousness is such a gift. It should never be stifled by being ‘conscious’!

As a musician, I have also felt this state of being ‘conscious’ while playing. It happens even to the best of us.

We all fall in that trap of trying to be ‘good enough’ as someone. That someone could be your favourite artist, a contemporary or your own mentor.
But in reality we can only be as good as our best selves. We can never be as good as someone outside our own being.
We can only push further and reach the heights we are capable of. The moment we stop having an external benchmark, a sense of emancipation will dawn on us.

While you should always strive to learn from everyone,
from a master to a novice,
The goal should always be to reach your best possible expression,
Your truest artistic splendor.

And it is best achieved by not striving to ‘be like someone.’
Surprisingly, it is not even achieved by striving ‘to be the best version of yourself.’

The most natural way to progress is just by ‘being’.

It might sound psuedo-spiritual.
And I must admit that it is a difficult state of being to win back.

But we had that state of being as kids.
I am not talking about mastery. Kids are not masters at an artform per se.
I am talking about that subtle awareness.
And the state of just ‘being’,
and expressing until you’re spent for the moment, for the day.

We all had that state of being.
We just have to unlearn.
Unlearn the habit of self-doubt, comparison, and the state of being ‘conscious’.

Now that I wonder about my friend’s question of,
‘I wonder how long it would have taken him to have that state of being’,

I think that the artist preserved the childlike ‘being’ he had as a kid.
Maybe he has always had that state of being.
Like we all did once upon a time.

And we can all strive for that state of being.
In the interest of our best artistic expression.
In the journey of being the best human we can be.

Sometimes the fastest way to learn,
Is to Unlearn.

The Blues of the Sky

May 22, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

I opened my eyes to see Buddha’s golden statue glint feebly in star light. It took me a moment to place myself and realise that I had been sleeping in a Monastery the whole night. The toil of the days cycling had anesthesized my wakefulness as soon as I lay down.

Once I awoke, I stepped outside the enclosure. There was not a single artificial light in the vicinity. I was in a remote part of the country, virtually untouched by light pollution.

I looked up, and heard a call,
Of countless clusters of stars , shining light years away, revealing themselves in the absence of moonlight.
Transfixed, I ogled as if I’d found a treasure all for myself.
I clicked many pictures with the lens of my eye, the shutter of my lashes.
I would not move an inch until the sun rose and claimed the sky for itself. A surreal experience from my last few days in Thailand.

A few days ago, I reached Kolkata, India.
I landed at 3am. I felt an excitement to witness the night sky again.
I quickly assembled my bicycle outside the airport and headed out excitedly, to embrace the sky.
But alas, the stars were all in hiding. Lights from sodium lamps blended with the haze in the sky to obscure the marvel of the milky way.
I waited patiently for the sunrise, hoping that it would be treat for the eyes.
But the haze in the sky casually relegated the majesty of the sun.

It was such a contrast to witness these two different night skies in two different realities.

I happened to read a newspaper article yesterday which threw light on the rising pollution in Indian cities that led to respiratory ailments in citizens. I imagined people would go to a doctor to ask for a medicine to help them cope and recover.

It felt as if we are trying to save ourselves from a world of our own making. And we are trying to solve our own individual problem with pollution and letting things be, as long as we can afford to brush the dirt under the carpet.

But what about the dirt in the sky?

One effect of technology on culture is that we do not look too far beyond. We have the world at a distance of half a feet, in the confines of our glowing smartphone screens. Much of our gaze never goes beyond this vantage, to look up and sense, that the we are deserting the sky, effacing a star from our view with each passing day.

While one can go to a doctor to find a cure for his own respiratory ailment,
Where do we go to find a cure for an ailment that inflicts our collective extended being, that includes our view of the night sky?

Maybe we need to rename the institutions that monitor how much further we can push our polluted existence.

Maybe we need a ‘Nightsky Saving Board’ than an ‘ Air Pollution Control Board.’

For we will be reminded of the problem at hand and have to look no further than the sky to realise our responsibility to act as windshield wipers for our dirty skyline.

Sometimes renaming can bring us closer to the reality we must collectively rise up to change.

The most severe of tragedies is when a tragedy becomes mundane and commonplace.

Let’s find a way,
So that our kids don’t get used to
A hazy sky,
A starless night.

The sky is feeling blue.

Let’s find a way to cheer it up !

A Sparrow and Nostalgia

May 20, 2018 / Sreenath Sreenivasan / 0 Comments

It was my first day in Thailand. I was sitting in a nondescript street food shop in Bangkok.

Absolutely overwhelmed by the gush of novelty that my senses were bombarded with within hours of arrival, I sat in deep wonder.
Every frame of my vision was a new movie. Towering skyscrapers, the plentitude of seven eleven shops, a pool of people from a different race altogether, zipping miniature motorbikes, tuk tuks and takeaway shops thronging the streets, a bright blue sky painted in between the parallel stretch of towers…

The street had a a whirlpool of odours too. Of colognes that promise proximity, of grilling chicken wings on a charcoal fire, of freshly cut pineapple, of a soupy stock bubbling at a noodle shack, of the moistness in the air, of air conditioning and of a plentitude of people…
It was a kaleidoscopic joyride of novelty for these two senses,
Of sight and smell.

But at one particular moment, in a sudden flash, I felt as if I was right at home. I felt like a six year old, absolutely cosy in a home environment. I wondered why I felt like that.

Soon, a little bird came a rested itself right next to my bicycle. And it let out a soft chirrup.

That was it.
That was the moment.
I felt completely drenched in nostalgia of childhood. All the haze of history cleared up with the coo of the little bird.
You know what bird it was?

A little sparrow.

Most young adults in India have grown alongside the song of the sparrow. But a decade ago, their numbers started dwindling, and as of now, spotting a sparrow is a rarity.
But in Thailand, sparrows are thriving. Everywhere I went, they had a troop posted, for me to feel safe and at home.
I was a child, all throughout my journey.

I have pictures in albums that have tried to capture my childhood best. And I have access to them as I wish. It is great to be able to see what you looked like and the experiences you went through as a child through photographs. But after a point, as we’ve come back to them so many times, we know exactly what to expect. The nostalgia, the memories and pretty much like a re-run of your favourite show. Nothing changes,
you reminisce the same glorious days and feel happy about it.

But in the decade I grew up in, capturing sound was neither a mainstream technology or the preferred way to capture memories. The sound of our childhood echoes in a deep cavern in our heart. While being inside of us, it is still the most inaccessible place in the whole wide world.
Is there a way I can hear the voices of me and my friends playing together as kids?
Sadly, no.

But, sometimes you find yourself right inside that deep cavern in your heart, one you had absolutely forgotten about, unlocked by the spell of a little bird.

The sparrow brought me back my childhood, when I least expected it, in a land I had never been to before.

Oh the power of unsolicited nostalgia.!
It is the closest one can get to a time machine.

This experience also got me thinking about the way we capture our memories in the present day and age. We are obsessed with clicking images, for it has never been as easy in history. We have a stream of visual information chroniced in our memory cards.
How much of it is imprinted in our memory is another question.

A lost phone, a corrupted memory card, wipes out all the memories we thought we had wrestled from an inaccessible past. Or even while we have all the pictures that we so avidly click, how many of us go back and revisit them ?

Clicking pictures and shooting videos has become an instinct, a reflex of sort.
We have stronger memory cards but our memory weakens as a result.

It is time to reimagine how we capture our memories.

Maybe clicking less and looking more closely captures a memory best.
A memory is an abstraction of things that you cannot individually piece together.

A digital picture of a pajama party in college captures an image.
But does it capture the reverb in the room, the crisp of the chips, the drops of a leaky faucet, the leering orange light of the lamppost, the smell of feet, the feel of the fabric, the warmth in the comfortable touch of friends, the grain of wood, the roaring flame of a bonfire,
the howl of an owl seeking a mate at midnight….?

Sometimes a memory is best captured when hand-picked ,
experienced element after element, that makes for the collective feeling of happiness at that moment.

So, the next time you find a moment worth capturing, fight the urge to just click a picture.

Meditate over the moment,
Engage all you senses,
Mindfully.

For you are collecting bits of nostalgia of the future, to be safely put away in that deep cavern in your heart.

And the more you do this, the more unsolicited nostalgia you will find in life, in unexpected places,
Even in the gentle coo of a canary,
Or in the howl of an owl at midnight.

I have a little sparrow in my heart. And it knows all my secrets.

I wish you luck, in finding the bird that holds the spell to the deep cavern in your heart,
That leads you to,
the reveire of your childhood.