When I first came to these United States, of the few CDs I had with me were those of Gulzar. However I used to avoid listening to them except on some long afternoons, when I felt it was appropriate to allow myself to feel longing for a country from which I had eagerly sought escape, or voluntary exile as I called it. Milan Kundera wrote something along those lines somewhere, in the novel 'Forgetting' I think.

Gulzar was also there at the begining of a relationship forged on a long roadtrip, and he was there at its explosive end, intoning words in his gravelly voice.

This evening as it has proved impossible for me to do any work, I invited Gulzar again into this tomb of books, old laughs, and night time noises. He came readily, with his bag of poems, which he has been reciting in my ear for the past many hours as we drink some vodka together.

And I in that half drunk state have been putting his words into half baked foetry. Still purpose served. Folks who want to drink direct from the source can listen to the orginals recited here.

He thinks about his recent course of actions to see what he could and should have done otherwise, and more importantly what could he learn?

Not civility. That much effort he made. To be civil, not to degrade what was a long relationship with name calling, which any case doesn't offer anything to learn. Yet he couldn't avoid the muck of it. Perhaps there is no gentle enough method to say, "this is where I stop, and I will go no further on this path", especially if the path happens to be her life, or what he could percieve of it.

That said there is always the question in his mind: is this the best possible route, or is it just the most expedient route? When he poses this question to himself, both his intellect and heart affirm the former, and yet wonder about the latter. This is the paradox of choice: the good choice, the bad choice, and the indifferent choice.

What then was the basis of his choice? Was it delebrative or instinctual, all based on the small fund of his previous experiences? Perhaps a mixture of both, but always revolving around the cardinal priniciple of living, i.e., interacting and interweaving with other, an integral life, or at least making a delibrate effort to do so. What such a process, as he understands it, would lead to is fidelity.

Then this question follows in his mind: is it possible for a person who conceals significant personal facts for whatever reasons (perhaps, these can be termed the 'big' lies), and to backup such a coverup invents a continuum of 'small' lies, to become integral at some point of time in the now and the future? And even if this were possible (inner work can be done to overcome unethical habits), is it possible to regain trust, which is the basic coin of any living bond?

He has no answers to these quandries. But then, perhaps, the idea is not to seek answers to these quandries but to live with an awareness of these questions of integrity, fidelity and trust, as he turns, as he must, from suspicion to openess, from anger to letting go, and from indifference to compassion.

He will have to reaccquaint myself to these silences at night as they have become somewhat unfamiliar, like the voice of a friend whom you haven't conversed with in a while. But till some such familiarity happens, he will have to revert back to using the tricks he had learnt from a novel on how to cleave himself into her, you and I.

...

So I am listening to a recording of a Nitin Sawhney's live performance here. I have at various points of time sung praises of Mr. Sawhney's music, and he is worth listening to again and again, and worth discovering (MusicIndiaOnline has all of his albums here!) if not already discovered by the unelightened masses. Why you ask? In return I ask, tell me of one contemprorary musician who has made immigration, identities, apartheid/ racism, impact of technology on human life, nuclear weapons, love songs etc the central concerns of his or her music?

...

She. Who is she? Who was she? Which 'she' will she become? You ponder on these questions, as if you are supposed to move a chessman in a game of chess where the opponent's pieces not only are allowed to change form (i.e., a rook can become a queen and a queen a lowly pawn) but also color. Before you began playing did you wonder how many moves will you have to make to check-mate, if ever?

...

This was a part of the world that you passed through about a decade ago. The purpose of your visit was persumably to learn a computer language (Fortran 77 was it?) so that you can have an easier time in the coming semester. You got on a bus heading in that direction, a bus which followed a route that lay in the Naxal belt. So in the middle of the night in the middle of nowehere, a couple of heavily armed policemen got on the bus, and stayed with the driver for the next couple of hours.

You were woken up when the bus reached the next state, and was stopped for no reason on the highway. One or the other political party had declared a state wide bandh, i.e., strike. And so this bus couldn't travel any further. And no, nor could it turn and go back across the state borders. You, who were getting schooled in the art of patience, had several adventures and finally reached the place you were supposed to reach.

Once there you didn't do any programming but rode a bicycle all around the town, and to this village down the road with a temple on a hill. At that point you were yet to encounter Jejuri in the dank literarture section of the large engineering library (fondly called CL by the natives) that you were to haunt in the coming days. You were miserable then, and for many subsequent months. Happiness is something that you never made a pact with after you were expelled from paradise.

And now, after many years, when you read of despair that has not been manufactured, and the consequent suicides, you feel very foolish, and very greatful for the much that you have been given.