Life or something like It

the realm of the senses

2012-01-19T23:44:00.000-08:00

For beauty alone my Phaedrus, beauty alone , is divine and visible at once.
For, mark you, it is the sole aspect of the spiritual that we can perceive through our senses ,
or bear to perceive.
Else what should become of us, if the divine, of reason and virtue and truth, were to speak to us through the senses?

~ Socrates to his disciple.

Supermoon

2011-03-18T23:15:00.000-07:00

i can feel the pull

and hear the roaring wave.

does it come from a land far far away?

or a long forgotten island within

my heart aches with a song

a song which cant be sung

song bout a heart which craves

craves for that cosmic grace

the grace that is light yet heavy

light on the senses , heavy on the being

a being that since long secretly conspired

conspired to reach that realm

the realm of that luminescence

~ Tushar

19 March 2011

we felt bad but not that bad...

2011-03-11T23:01:00.000-08:00

So we felt bad, but not that bad
We just pressed the chord
And started singin' like we'd sung before
We got enough snow who needs more
Of what we never really had

We kept singin' for the same

Reasons that we sung before

~ Josh Ritter

being there

2011-03-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

I've lived a lot,

trembled a lot,

was surrounded by little men who forgot that

we enter naked and exit naked

and that no accountant can audit life in our favor.

- Being There ,the movie

shape of my heart

2011-02-28T07:40:00.000-08:00

Oh and if there's any love in me,
Don't let it show.
Oh and if there's any love in me,
Don't let it grow.

Oh when the wild was all covered by snow,
I forgot the colours that the grass tend to grow.
Oh the trees were all leafless,
And lifeless and black,
And I wondered if the leaves could grow back

For your heart is like a flower as it grows,
And its the rain, not just the sun that helps it bloom,
And you don't know how it feels to be alive,
Until you know how it feels to die

Oh and if there's any love in me,
Don't let it show.
Oh and if there's any love in me,
Don't let it grow.

blue

2011-02-28T07:30:00.000-08:00

I saw you blink

and i missed your eyes

your blue eyes .......

a conversation

2011-02-26T22:59:00.000-08:00

bhave: Tushar.. .do you think certain events or experiences have given your life a definite turn

me: how important are memories bhave?

bhave: Not very. If you are happy when you ask this question . .

:-)

me: hmm life is a state of mind

and right bout now.....

2011-01-14T09:08:00.001-08:00

and right bout now , all i want, is to sit on a wooden chair in a sun-lit park.....and not rushed into thinking ,what i am to do next

I get around.....

2011-01-14T06:20:00.000-08:00

Whats the similarity....between Johnny Cash and Tushar Rai (Apart from the obviously beautiful sounding names of course....)??

They are both found on a playlist of 9 songs of some random spanish dude .

Ah , lets start the new year with an element of narcissism......shall we ?

(People having a bad eye day....yes , yes...it is click to zoom)

autopilot

2010-09-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

it has come to my notice recently , that these days its really hard to be objective about anything at all . If there were a debating contest , i would fare pretty poorly .

"Members of the Jury , i hear the topic and i understand it too but the thing is .....ummmm.. its really hard to put it in words. .......( two second pause ) ...yeah , here goes .... I dont Care

As it is , i woudnt call myself political nor will you find me breaking into a speech , over some article i read in some newspaper that how the social reform policy isnt right and how the 'revered' editorial column has thrown a new light on a subject of mighty importance .

so naturally , there is nothing much to talk bout .

Top five contenders for conversation themes would be :

i) Ah ! you are early today ?

ii)There is an issue with this pipeline(dont wonder....not worth it)

iii) Bad weather today , i dont feel like an 11 am tea today .

iv)The lunch looks good.....but thats bout it

, i was sure there were five.......oh , well

no direction home

2010-07-24T22:27:00.000-07:00

As it turns out , a month later since my last post , i am still living out of a bag, i still have no blinds to draw , there is no cocktail recipe to my repertoire and the new luminescent neon sign of my library still has a fictitious existence.

It feels like my environment was sizing me up and now when it has , it has turned into this hostile unnamed heavy presence that is turning more hostile with each passing day . Its like when you take a new drug , our body takes it own time in deciding whether the drug flowing through its vein should be accepted or not.

Am wondering bout the possibility of me being the sole cacophonous instrument of this orchestra producing a beautiful symphony and my orchestrator not taking a liking to my presence ......

everyday i wake up in a different world , not knowing who i am supposed to be , no rhyme or reason to how a particular day will turn out, cab rides seem like a journey into some kind of alternate reality .

May be i have finally stumbled upon life , maybe this is my vagabond existence speaking but as it goes, in such situations of great dilemma we find answers or some more related questions through songs or musings of a great novelist.'No direction home' comes to mind...and so does

these haunting lines from The National .....

" we are half awake in a fake empire"

What does it take to be a songwriter or a great writer ? Do they have to be disconnected , live in some parallel existence to have a bird's eye view of the world, i wonder , how else would murakami think of comparing a girl's laughter to an old refrigerator !

I am constantly being reminded of the boat ride on Danube through Vienna , and star gazing lying on a quiet beach and of wooden house at the foot of Alps.......

I am moving , i am doing distances more than i thought i would , i am making more practical decisions than i ever had coz following my instinct wasnt a groundbreaking success ......still ,

thousands of kms and dreams later i find myself penning these words down.....

sweetness follows

2010-06-26T23:12:00.000-07:00

well ....

well , as days are being swept under my feet and nights being spent in between setting the alarm and waking up with it.....it is hard to warm up(inspite of the heat) to the obvious fact that i am so far around the bend that my previous home has more of a metaphysical presence for now.

chicken and pasta(slurp !) weekends and bout half a dozen half-seen movies (both courtesy Madhu) ,90 km worth travel without music which i dont really mind ,all that affection poured on by my nephews and dog saliva have been the happy , interesting and vivid themes of my brief stay here .

I find myself really craving for my own space , where i could finally unpack , open my half torn cartons , draw up my curtains, set my little library of books and movies( i will name this one for a change).......lie flat on my bed and listen to 'fake empire' by the National .

am looking forward to learn some great cocktail recipes and since you guys will be visiting , all suggestions will be duly considered ....

its weird how i will sometimes detest change and then coz of it i find myself in a peaceful place .....where my silent playlist continues to grow .

The song playing right now in my head is "if she wants me "

= )

so this is goodbye...

2010-06-01T05:43:00.000-07:00

as i comfortably sit on my bed.....and reflect over the leaner me who landed in pune five years ago , and walking crisscross , stupidly trying to avoid the steady drizzle......i am breaking in a smile(just bout now) thinking bout our maths teacher comment when he saw the first drops of rain through our class 12th window pane......."rain is finally raining" is what he said......

as all my friends are ethereal for me , and are beyond the concept of time and place , there are no farewells and goodbyes.......nor do i want to write a blog or book or even words bout them and run the risk of someone who is trying to write a biography bout me thinking bout them in the limited scope of the words i have written for them..

'five years in pune' however is a different proposition all together , i could jot down things bout it , for it , against it and i could appear forlorn, or happy or dejected as one read those words.....

guess it doesnt matter what i think bout it........but i would want to say this , that amongst one of the few things i would like to take away from 'Pune , the city' will be Meena's tea point ...our place for breakfast and discussions of philosophical and sometimes adolescent nature.

one thing is for sure.......i would fall short of items ....if i played "10 items or less " for pune......

Got caught in the first monsoon shower , while returning from my last day in office , yesterday.

seems like i came with the rain....and now am going away with it

so this is goodbye ....... or not

The second wind

2010-04-29T04:44:00.000-07:00

There are times when u stop , to take stock of what life has piled up for you.......an audio cassette of your first english compilation , a dusty old love letter your wrote but never cared to deliver it....for your love only lasted till you were writing it , sepia toned photographs without any description of how u felt when those were taken and a shelf full of books , each one looking more like a collector's edition with each passing moment .

Then when u add all of them ......metaphorically , spiritually using the most complicated equations of life that cant be derived in a set of formulas , you end up looking at a clean slate .

It feels as if one is a palette , with all the colored flavors that life has to offer , mixed together.

So that in the end only discernible color is white.

When i was taking my little baby steps , after my back problem .....its kind of how i felt.

Like life is coming around again.......even my gait feels different now .

memories have transcended to be categorized as happy or sad ,The tune-humming has become louder....star gazing is so much more peaceful... the harmonica feels cold in my hand ...ready to be harped on .

Time to learn new lessons and old ones in a different way.

The only reminder of my previous existence is this tingling semblance of pain.....which sometimes comes around.

and suddenly i am beginning to absolutely adore the title of one particular blue book in my shelf.

"A portrait of an artist as a young man"

a finished painting taken off the stand , and replaced by a fresh canvas

i hope you dont mind.....that i put it down in words...

2010-04-08T12:25:00.000-07:00

whats ur rai ? ........mine is the kind , found on trucks and tankers

To Survive a life less ordinary

2010-03-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

Step one : Revisit some of the lighter moments

Man to his brother : Your wife is like the sun ......only without the warmth .

***********************************

Woman : Thats how it is , before you get better you have to hit rock bottom

Man : Yes .....well , I am glad i could be down there for you .

*************************************

Man 1: Is it my imagination or Sam is flirting with Daphne ?

Man 2 : Of course he is flirting with Daphne , He cant help it , he is a sexual compulsive .

He is getting help though , he is in a support group.

**** Sound of Daphne Giggling from the kitchen*********

Man 1 : Did he miss a meeting of the group ?

************************************

Man to an Elderly gentlemen : Let me present my brother who is an eminent psychiatrist

His Brother : Oh , he is too kind , my brother was already eminent when my eminence was merely imminent

Bed time Stories - part one

2010-02-19T00:29:00.000-08:00

Till recently , Life in a room was a major part of my life......and now when it has turned into the only kind of life i could afford to live , somethings have changed and most of them ; havent .

I still wake up with the door bell followed by jumping onto the floor ,which is a kind of an acquired reflex. That hasnt changed . What has changed is this sudden newsflash in my head, while i am still in process of completing my acquired reflex , which says ....*F.U.C.K* .

and all for a good reason coz am not allowed any acrobatics for three months......because of a back problem . the culprit's name is L5-S1( if you are still reading) and it has chosen to move from its column....again for a good reason...i mean being in the same stupid position for 27 years might get irksome for the adventurous type....i dont blame the chap

time for my second round of bed rest......

and yes.....The Wild Sheep Chase is on ! its my seventeenth attempt and it took best part of an year, an indoor cricket game , a brilliant catch and far too many auto rides to make sure that this attempt will be my last......

More later....( but then that probably is a given .......given the title of this story)

I am listening ( My Coffee with Niles)

2010-02-01T11:13:00.000-08:00

This ode has been long long overdue....

let me start this one with a fact.....

Frasier is the best TV series i have seen , by a country mile ....Period

and i have loved the journey....while i sailed through the eleven seasons in a matter of just two( the kind of humor i was tickled and honored with)

I Salute Thee !

Mr Niles Crane , You are by far my fav character , your victorious gestures and ridiculous gait and hilarious smile will always make me roll with stomach churning laughter .

Mr Frasier Crane , I am Listening ! ( n will be)

love love love

2010-01-31T04:27:00.000-08:00

Snakes in the grass beneath our feet
Rain in the clouds above
Some moments last forever
And some flare out with love love love

The Mountain Goats

.....

2010-01-25T10:35:00.000-08:00

when will it end ?

So i played an escapade just like you.......I played an escapade just like You

2010-01-18T12:07:00.000-08:00

Nineteen days into the year , am positively late on magnanimously proclaiming this year to be the year of the poetic justice .

to think of , The lightning will still adorn the skies and thunder will still

roar on .......and when the sun breaks through , it wont metaphorically express the victory of good over evil , nor will it be a prelude to the bright and melodic times ahead when the pendulum of life starts swinging back towards the sunny side of life .

What it Will be , will be a span of time in timeline of life .

Now m wondering , whether the epoch of my happiness and truth has already passed and i was just too sad to notice ......

Its common knowledge , but 2009 was the worst year of my 25 years of service for Tushar Inc ( the first two years i had no sense of time and didnt know , who the hell tushar is )

so when i finally found the ground of the bottomless pit , into which i was free falling in 2009 , the concept of new beginnings , roads less travelled , promises to keep and miles to sleep suddenly became like floating dandelion seeds in the summer breeze .......which i wanted to jump

really high and hold on to .

One of my close friends , talks bout an elusive spark ,.......in the conquest of which , our life is based upon . The spark which is there to witness , even with eyes closed , but impossible to sustain and store........The Flint and the Pyrite can be anything from a smile to a sudden cool summer breeze .

another close friend talks bout the sense of time and how great it would be to not quantize time.....for all things psychological .

A second in my life is not different from the one following it . Nor the minute(or days , months,years)........then why the need to wait for the end of year , for acts of reclaiming or resetting one's life, ...happiness shoudnt be a sudden declaration nor should it be an item on any kind of list......

The conquest of that elusive spark should be an uninterrupted journey rather than waiting to sink till the bottom of that deep dark well , when the only thing left to do is rise .

the flight of the Albatross

2009-12-28T22:01:00.001-08:00

The wingspan of an albatross is the largest.......when i first read bout this fact.....the first image that came to my mind was of a large shadow gliding effortlessly over blue glittering waters of the Ocean......

Its fascinating how these imageries of the mind ...... associate themselves with memories , people descriptions , movies , ideas ....and even fleeting moments of our mundane lives .

when we relive moments...we are actually revisiting a highlight reel , almost like a painting being created , far too quickly for the mind's eye to notice the brush n the palette ,and then , only to dissolve back into pigments later .

From the swirling ships to a house amongst the prairies ,

the white alleys of Greece to a bottle of French wine kept besides a fireplace

From bread dipped in hot tea to the sand-dunes of the night

the blue umbrella giving in to the stormy rain , to Mr Brando with the crooked smile ;

there will be always be portraits , landscapes and stills associated with adventures , elation , childhood , warmth ,music , art , suffering and love

Incidentally , I rem one of my friends telling me that she thought of me as 'a blue square' , which was funny and of course flattering(!) .

The thing is , that even when one is not blessed with such hyper-imaginative imagination ,

all of us do tend to have our own silent movies.....without subtitles

the blues in the blue-shirt boy

2009-12-08T21:43:00.000-08:00

This one , my friends....is not your regular bi-monthly SliceOfLife post (partly because there hasnt been too much to life to slice about and partly because i know you have been naughty and have forgotten to pay your monthly subscriptions ) .

This is in fact my WalkofLife post , the likes of which hasnt been seen since the days of Coffee day debacles

The good parts were to renew my acquaintance with some people i thought i had left behind.....

and the pleasures in the general process of recording a new song .

Its been a month since i started this project of a lovely Alexi Murdoch song.......and somehow everytime i put the mic down ....stretch myself on my recording chair and tell myself...there it is ..."the definitive version" , i break into clammy and disagreeable expressions as soon as i hit the play button to hear the masterpiece i had produced.....

there is always an extra gasp , far too many saliva swallowing sounds and the drone of devil's minions shaped in form of a vehicle playing 'who could honk the loudest' as they tread past my window . ( A cool cape anyone ??)

The not so good part is the white noise between these pleasant interjections........

the restless mind , the heavy heart , unfinished books , unpleasant dreams

with that , its time for me to sign off.....

and i would leave you with a few lines from The New Slang by the Shins

I'm looking in on the good life i might be doomed never to find.

Without a trust or flaming fields am i too dumb to refine?
And if you'd 'a took to me like
Well i'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

In case of .....Life

2009-11-25T07:46:00.000-08:00

There are times when you think of a title...before you think of the content

This is one of those moments....

Lets see....

The phrase represents an everlasting hope for adventures , travels , passion, possibilities , journeys on roads less traveled and incomprehensible fancies of a hopeless romantic turning into

a tangible reality....

when John Cusack puts it in words in the movie Serendipity.....He is hopeful of meeting the strange and interesting Kate even though he is committed and she is too .

Whats beautiful bout the scene is....that they are true to the moment...that incandescent reaction which happens on a bustling New York Night .

No morals to be taken out of this little anecdote = ) but what i would say is this....

The only secret to the window of life ....is to realise that it opens from inside your room into the world outside .

n it makes sense to open it from inside and gaze out

The right attitude to Rain

2009-11-10T08:20:00.000-08:00

It poured today.....

and i noticed birds perched on top of the electric poles and some on the cables ....

Footnote: No Birds or animals were hurt during the production of this cosmic Drama

Note on Footnote:The people responsible for the above footnote have been fired cause there were only birds featuring in the drama

P.S. on Note on Footnote: The Drama is based on real events as witnessed by one

Tushar Rai prone to gibberish and over-emphasizing the point .

Sleepless

2009-10-27T15:18:00.000-07:00

well its 3 :50 am right now and no ! this post is not from halfway across the world .

I actually am awake with a Lag that has still not caught up to the ways of the solar watch ....and my mind , bolting around the park .......

No thoughts of 'cottage cheese florentine' or' Carmel by the sea' , would lull me to sleep ....

thought that i should be able to conjure up some of these random thoughts that my mind is shuttling around .......so much so.....that although i am part of the game...i feel more like the little green ball rather than a player brandishing his racket.

The girl at the counter at Carmel by the sea........who seemed to be flirting with me...and of course i woudnt know that(coz its not your average common phenomenon) , until i had discussed the gravity of the situation with my good friend Bhandu ...

and i also seem to rem those woodden chairs...in the little shallow brook , where we had hot chocolate...

and that tunnel.......with brightening light at the other end......which resulted in great silhouettes

all those pack of swallows .......with a taste for paparazzi....

and those beautiful boats......with high colorful sails parked at the dock......reminding me of the Otis Redding' song ...which i kept humming

Hanging by the cable bus....which took its own sweet time...in travelling a few miles.....

and that guy...who kept us company by playing denver and dylan tunes...while we waited in fading sunlight in the long and winding queue to get to our transport......

oh and i rem humming to 'baby ! id love you to want me'

I wish i had my harmonica to play along

with that gibberish , i am suddenly feeling sleepy...looks like i have finally tricked my mind , into believing that these eloquent display of thought blogging wont stop, until it tells me...'its time to sleep '........

So i will sign off into the night lights .......and leave all you beautiful people ...

with a beautiful image . .

a pack of swallows over a quite sea with sunlight bouncing off its greenish blue waters

a night with Bob Dylan

2009-10-20T18:31:00.000-07:00

It came ,

finally........and it left me thinking

what if i were in the 60's .

The best part of the show was the aniticipation , half an hour before the show i was there

in my seat...directly opposite to the stage .....with a coke in my hand . My mind took one of its

trips .

In a state best described as diffused consciousness. As if , i were a plasma existence slowly spreading in the arena..soaking in the atmosphere...

When it ended , i realised ..i really was in the 60's ,In love with this twenty five year old artist , with an acoustic guitar....fitted with a harmonica stand but the person in front of me was a sixty five year old man , with that husky voice.....and with a band playing really loud music .

All the while, i was trying really hard.......to keep that image of the 60's from the present

performer, and then my demons returned ....i came back to my seat , depressed looking at a stage that i didnt recognize and performers i didnt want to hear. That feeling , was briefly stalled

by Dylan playing Harmonica.

When i still found myself , humming one of his songs later that night , I smiled

I have not been to a Bob Dylan concert yet! ' , no matter what my ticket might have said .

Carmel by the sea

2009-10-16T15:03:00.000-07:00

One of my trips( the only one actually) and i stumbled across this little town known as

'Carmel by the sea' , "what a lovely name" i thought .

While i am no Edward Bloom from Big Fish ,I did relate to how he might have felt when he found that little happy town ,

it felt like i am in one of those enchanted places : untouched & unscathed and yes lovelorn ,

the only difference being ......i didnt find any shoes hanging by poles = )

why would anyone want to leave such a place ? i thought

why indeed ?

I dont have an answer to that , Yet, here i am ! back in Phoenix......oh yes it *****.

desert chronicles

2009-09-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

nameless faces in endless cars....

my first impressions of the city

vast stretches of arid, dry scenery

driving in fading light is an experience

sunsets carry a sense of receding romance....

like the swell of unexplained emotion one feels ,

watching a strong summer breeze carrying dry leaves until it eventually dies out...

like watching the ripples form on a silent pond

like watching puddles on cobblestone roads

the city itself.....lacks a soul

heartbeats of the place dont add up.....into a living presence

nothing here , has struck a chord of profound pondering ....

interacting with people , sharing their sense of belonging

and being close enough to hear their thoughts was something .

what i heard though ,was sense of loss and longing for a life

where they would have more avenues to talk of their pain

and suffering apart from their eyes.

impressions

2009-09-30T14:15:00.000-07:00

so to say ...

why did i do it......?

probably the answer was coz it was born out of loathing and depression

and why m i doing it again ......

the answer is.......i dunno

thoughts have started taking form , like a creeping shadow on a wall

while i dont feel the need to vent .....

i do want to put wet clay under the weight of my thoughts..

just in case someone decided to turn the lights on .

And i will sing my song ......

2009-09-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

So forget this cruel world ...

where i belong

and i will just sit and wait

and sing my song ...