My Heart has a Mind of its own …

Not the original words it seems, now that I got curious and googled it.

And found a song with that line in it.

The song is too strong for someone like me, but still – the lyrics – by Howard Greenfield and Jack Keller go like:

People try and tell me that its crazy
You and I were never meant to be
I don’t believe they know,
and even if it’s so
I’m fallen anyway, no matter what they say.

A part of me is taking me by the hand
The world can’t see
Still they can’t understand
Why can’t they understand. . . .
My heart has a mind of its own
Right or wrong its gonna do
Only what it feels is true
I’ll follow it wherever it goes
Anywhere it leads me to
My heart has a mind, mind of its own.

Maybe we won’t always be together
Maybe this’ll last a thousand year
Ain’t nobody knows, and even if they did
It wouldn’t matter now
I’d love you anyhow.

My heart knows what I’m needing
My heart knows what I’m feeling
It knows me better than I know myself
My heart knows what I’m missin’
All I have to do is listen
And listen well. . . .

That’s beside the point, however.

In the garden, in the evening, several playful children were excitedly screaming, “Mami! Look here!” I looked, too. I saw the swings and slides and stuff. The kids were pulling the hands of a slender, young lady who was the Mami to those kids. The lady had a warm expression on her face, she was smiling and was willingly being pulled.

Yesterday was the last day of Diwali vacation for many kids, and they must have come to the park to have their last bit of fun. Further – these must be the kids who would have come to their Mama’s home for the vacation.

Ah! And I saluted the tradition that you go to Mama’s home for the vacation. Do we do it anymore? Could anyone go to Mama’s home break after break for weeks at a time and enjoy? Would Mami take you out to play and make your vacations fun-filled? Can your mama really invite you if it weren’t for the loving, warm, tolerant Mami?

Lucky are those who have such Mamis! (I and my kids are lucky to have them!)

Oh my God! Memories of vacations at Mama’s home are flooding.. Do you have these memories, too? Are you Mama or Mami to someone?

In the wilderness, one day I woke up to this unbearable lightness of being (Do you read Kundera?)

.. And I hurriedly took a shower

The nature was bountiful – there was abundance of everything – peace, beauty, Life. Yet, I saw Thirst with arms outstretched..

I saw the fallen -

And also realized that falling is not a question of degrees

Especially when I saw ones who were down but not out..

..and the green, the life fighting with own twin dryness and death within

So I, too, stretched my arms full length

.. and decided not to fret too much when I can’t get all my lines straight – after all,  nature has difficulty doing that, too -

I reminded myself not to focus too hard on the dunes, the sky or the earth, the greens, the lush or the parched in isolation – it’s the total picture that matters.

Has wilderness said something to you of late?

As a couple visited another, the hosts already had guests. Introductions followed and all found that they all shared links to one particular city. One of the three women was introduced as the one who was ‘heavily invested in there’ because two of her most loved ones were stationed there.The woman said, “That’s right. If I died this moment, I would haunt that city.”

It reminded me of the stories in which the Rakshas (=demon) lives in one place but he safe-keeps his soul someplace else.

What the demons did for tricking enemies changes slightly when loved ones go away. Deep love unites deeply. It seems that with the departed loved ones our soul also journeys.

And at moments when the memories of the loved ones emerge on the surface consciousness, the Diya – the lamp – lights quietly in distance invisible to the eye. If you ever want to know where your soul is, just close the eyes and see where the lamp is burning steady and bright. That is the address of your soul.

Will then,

They be able to bring an end

To the sound

That echoes ever since you shattered my heart?

I can buy that. But I do not think that those pathways are one-size-fit-all. If that is true, I cannot possibly say things that are interesting equally to all.

Thinking of that, I wonder if one should ever be invited at the point of entry to a group to “Say something interesting about you..”

I would feel like my life is an animal that walked into a cage (because I went into that situation) and now onlookers and observers would look at whatever is at display. Mostly on such occasion I say something confounding that keeps unwarranted interest at bay.

I do not ask people to say anything interesting to me about them. I prefer to wait for an invitation. A life has someone whose life it is and it is better to be invited, even if it is not the innermost areas but as much as a compound, or a garden. Or a living room, or a study.

That is I think why I hardly ever initiate a social contact and once initiated, prefer to value the invite and take interest in what is shown to me. I might then develop and use the pathways over which there is a human connect.

This is not a very social model, and that explains why I have invites that tend to be thick once they happen. It does not mean I have personal favorites. But also makes me look selectively aloof … Hm, What am I going to say to others that is interesting?? I still need to figure out …

Whatever the reasons – I have never regretted that choice and I do not want to offend my law-loving friends, so I focus on the idea behind the title of this note.

While I smiled at my friend’s comment about being a good lawyer, I also remembered a couple of others. Sometimes I realized or sometimes observers told me that I could have made a good this and a good that.

And I suspect that I am also fairly good at my current job. Al least I enjoy it.

What would I have made? A Lawyer, a story teller, a counselor, a cook, and more… so many options were standing before me at the tender age when I chose (or rejected) the discipline(s).

What’s important is not to KNOW PRECISELY what I can study because of the traits I possess, but it is about evolving into who I love to BE. And let me not be too starry-eyed, because sometimes what we become is a product of our circumstances, the influence of people around us, our capability to envision at that time, and so much more. So, instead of studying literature, or psychology, I end up being a business major.

That way, while reading today’s precious mail, I wondered if we do not continue to act like stem cells through at least some part of our life.

A Stem Cell is capable of evolving into a cell for highly specialized organs of our body – and likewise, we are capable of evolving into any/several  of multiple possible professional roles. In fact it is possible to enrich our lead professional role by adding to it the qualities of alternative professions – something that the stem cell cannot do once it chooses the organ. Like a cell in lever cannot work like a cell in an eye, I suppose. Also, a stem cell has some constrain on time or size when the promise of specialization disappears. In our life, the promise lives as long as we do.

Only thing is, we need to remember that we are a human stem cell and not the one of a machine, a monster, or a  race horse or a terminator and so on… I hope I remember!

Consider, for example, a scene where Seeta needs to be called on stage. The setting is something like, Ram and Sita in the jungle, Ram sees something fascinating, and calls for Seeta — “Seete! Seete! Come here and see this!” When Seeta does not appear I mediately, the calling continues. Then comes a shout from Seeta, ‘Arrey wait – let me finish this BIDI!!!’

Or, the scene where Hanuman is in the court of enemies and heated dialogue is going on. Suddenly Hanuman says, ‘hey, wait – I need to fix this petromax’ and saying that, he begins to pump up the device for more intense light.

In one more instance, mid-show it was declared that someone had announced that he would be donating money to support the Ram Leela shows. Following that announcement, the war cry of the Vaanar Sena were, not Shri Ram ni Jay, but Jivan bhai ni Jay!!!

And finally, the shocker- in the scene of Seeta Haran, Ravan comes over to grab Sita. He does not find her in the hut, because the artist who was playing the character of Seeta had left abruptly or was not appearing for some reason. someone shouts from back stage, ‘Sita is not there, wait’, and the Ravan says, ‘Lakshman will do’ !!!!!

Have not seen a Raam Leela live? no problem – but if you want to know India, you must know what it CAN be like!!!

How do you get to the shop?

I was trying to reach the N**** center this morning. I Would not waste a lot of time, since that company cares for and protects it’s customer.

Then I approached the building where the store is located.

What do I see?

Your customer friendly company might be located such that you don’t have to commute far in order to reach them. But are they really accessible?

The company that you patronize might be offering customer care, might educate and support you in taking good care of your product. It might also be helping you safeguarding the environment by collecting the old products that you want to recycle.

But are YOU safe as you access your destinations?

I believe that customer care, safety and accessibility are not merely technical and architectural issues.

They are about the collective notions we have about who customer is, how important customer is to us and how we want to take care of the customer.

These notions are not only defined by the culture alone. If that was the case, a Swedish company would extend it’s Swedish values of customer care universally, and an American architect or planner would extend American values of design and accessibility to all countries he worked in.

These issues are essentially institutional.

Granite, but cracked: They don't expect oversized guests!

What kind of institutions we create and maintain will define what will be their processes and outcomes.

Unless the local institutions do not feel the need to recognize accessibility and safety, it would not be a part of norms, then the norms would not be enforced and so – don’t be surprised if one fine morning you break your bones trying to get to a world class vendor.

Full range of world class service and full benefit of world class features of your products requires world class norms – grown anode maintained at home.

As soon as I clicked the word “Publish” on the previous entry of describing self, I had more questions than the degree of satisfaction that should have arisen since posting.

Is changing really between either-or? When we choose to be, do we choose between the either-or?

When we adopt a new choice, do we cease to be who we were a moment ago and relinquish all the meaning and being associated with it?

The answer is No.

Either-or sort of things are just one, simple, limited and dramatic portion of life. Or, say life keeps giving us options that sound like either-or, and we feel hard pressed choosing one of the two.

A great amount of life occurs in the state between, and including BOTH ends, and telling life that you want both not one.

Life essentially is THIS-AND.

Coexistence of two opposite-or absurd-sounding states, preferences, qualities, activities actually makes life full, rich, exotic, complete and meaningful. Striving to accommodate that contrast adds flavor to life and leaves us enriched after each such feat – whatever field it might be.

No wonder, it is tough – but that makes the life so livable!! Dictionary would have called this paradoxical. But that is the essence of life..