I wish my country the best.

When I hear our National Anthem, even today my hair stands on end.

I hold my head up high and think what a beautiful country we have.
And its people - some of the bravest, brightest and the most honorable.

A new government was sworn in today
Don’t know what will happen.
There is so much to be done.
And so much to be not done.
All I want is a better deal for our poor and the oppressed, humans and animals.
It is unnerving to say this, but even today it includes the women.

All I can do is wish our country the very best.

Now is the moment to ...

Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached.
- Swami Vivekananda

Freddy's song

For the young ones who may not know of 'Freddy's song' from My Fair Lady, here are the lyrics. I have edited out a few lines, which I didn't consider relevant.
If anyone wishes to read the rest of the lyrics just google the film's name ... you may end up watching it too. Yes, it is that good.

"I have often walked down this street before;
But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.
All at once am I several stories high.
Knowing I'm on the street where you live.
Are there lilac trees in the heart of town?
Can you hear a lark in any other part of town?
Does enchantment pour Out of every door?
No, it's just on the street where you live!

People stop and stare. They don't bother me.
For there's no where else on earth that I would rather be.
Let the time go by, I won't care if I
Can be here on the street where you live."

Dear one, I apologise for my stupidity, but I didn't understand a word.

I was checking the comments that have been made on my earlier posts. 

Disease vs Conditions have elicited an intensely negative return. 

I came across a very disgruntled, almost abusive post of the 'you are an ass' kind.

True to my usual flippant self I'd referred to myself as a 'professional patient'. This person took off on that, and gave some very learned and derisive inputs and dismissed me in one extremely long sentence.

Dear One, I am greatly appreciative of your knowledge, but I understood nothing. I am that shallow.

To me, the word professional describes, and the thesaurus agrees, someone who is skillful at whatever he does. Efficient, competent, qualified, are some of the synonyms that the thesaurus puts forth. As a patient I am all that. The word ‘licensed’ applies too. It applies to me when it comes to the possibility of a trip only a mentally ill person can take.
As a patient I qualify for all of that.

So whatever opinion anyone may have about my being a professional patient, I will persist in my opinion that I am.

As far as the bipolar goes, I know when I need professional medical attention. This is not easy when the faculty need to realise that is compromised.

I am drug compliant. The lack this discipline, any honest doctor will tell you, is the most hand-wringing kind of frustration in their professional lives. For the quite-not-so honest, they see a happy increase in their cash flow.   

There is no virtue in this compliancy ‘though. I am mindful of the repercussions that going AWOL will definitely suck me into and I am terrified of that.
So I walk to my psychiatrist's clinic, make comments that are totally inappropriate, and immediately realise that they are what only a hypomanic can make.

When I am hypomanic, I rave and rant and put off people with unnatural intensity. Often the bridge of a treasured relationship is badly burnt, never to be mended again.
I have nightmares about those spent friendships, but then think that maybe that is the price to pay for an imagined equation that never was mature enough. I still regret the loss because in my mind I still wish that the friendship had braved the ups and downs of the tide – but I know that for people who have never experienced the onslaught of bipolar, only a miracle will mend them.
Then there is the flipside … when even the words of Freddie’s song in My Fair Lady make me sob. Forget about saying them out aloud, even writing the words cause a major tsunami.
Yet through the tears I laugh. The doctor does too. And I walk out with the knowledge that I have enough strength to have a sense of humour, at least for sometime, to make light of the situation and give it a good fight.

FYI the number of hits that blog scored is touching five figures and continues to grow.

Where is that someone?

Cynics see in me an upper-middle class do-gooder.
I can not disagree on the first.
I am upper-middle class.
As for the second, well I like to be there for whoever I think needs the kind of support I can offer.
If that is the definition of a do-gooder then I absolutely fit the bill.
There is that one condition when it comes to humans.
They have to approach me.
Unwanted support, however much needed can become an inconvenient load.
Particularly when it comes with the manic tenacity I bring with it.
Often they are done, they have given up and want to get on with their lives, but I can not let go.
I still continue to persist in my efforts for the 'right' closure.
The 'system' also wants to move forward. It is inconvenient to answer questions, to take on people in the same system that one belongs to.
I understand that. But still expect foolishly that someone will do it.
Someone with dedication, belief and faith.
Someone with self-respect.
Some ideals would also be welcome.
That kind of someone mostly is difficult to find.
But I keep hoping against hope that I will find that someone.

Love of my life

When the noise gets too much,

When the chaos is makin' me nuts,

I head for the hills I know and love,

Back there is where I go

Off the highway on a back road,

'round the bend and over a hill,

Cross the old stone bridge,

And take it till the end.

Then I kick off my shoes,

Then it is just my porch and me,

And a really great view.

Dance for the future

No matter what, nobody can take away the dance you’ve already had.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

And so I try to always dance for when future becomes the past.

Worthy?

I made myself just the right cup of coffee last night and thought of what is happening around me. 

I thought of the denigration of one's self that is taken so lightly to no justifiable end.

A person with any sense of dignity or self-worth will never disregard or intrude upon another's rights ... or be subjected to it.

Only a coward will resort to oppression, for that momentary illusion of power over another's life.

It is not a coincidence that those they victimise are lower down on their socio-economic ladder. Often financial as well.

If we value ourselves, we need to speak up and protect those that are wronged.

Limits? Should it be defining?

Living does not have to be copybook. Limits can open up opportunities that would never have been considered before. Limits bring with it humility, one needs to then get off one’s high horse. Ambitions that were driven by the lack of understanding of ones real abilities and bolstered by a misplaced ego have to be given up because they become too stressful and cause too much anxiety. The mind has a way of coming up with solutions once it has accepted the question.

Over and out

No more time for debates. Pro-Modi, anti-Modi whatever.

Who one supports is no longer of any importance.
BJP with it's Modi mast-head is now truly the flavour of the day, week, month, year and years.
That kind of absolute majority can be dangerous. Just imagine, one party has the entire country at it's mercy!
One party will rule the parliament totally. There will effectively be no opposition.
Wherever, whenever, this is scary. 

Very.

_____________________________

A close friend of mine, Naseem, sweet and kind as always, expressed a very generous sentiment.
He himself does not belong to the Modi cult, but graciously wrote to say, and let me quote him here, "I am happy for you all, because India is not about you and me, India is about us all, and India voted for him. Congratulations once again."
My response was this, "That is exactly it Naseem, India is for all. And the 'all' mostly are literate, but not educated enough to decide for themselves, particularly when the floodgates of the shiny, gaudy tinsels open.
Having said that, given the options, much less show of pomp, splendour and posturing would have brought the same result."
________________________________

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Those who have it, think before you think.
Think before you do.

Holy Smoke!

May 2014,
I thought I'd revive my blog with a cheerful, upbeat piece - the kind of post that is invigorating and uplifting. Empowering is a word I would have considered had it not become a joke in the recent elections held in the largest Democracy in the World'.  
I wanted it be the kind of post that would revive me as also the blog.
But no, life has decided that I have collected too much baggage -
too much and too many of the physical and mental chains that I've always wanted to keep myself free of.
What was I thinking?
What was I not thinking?
The result is the following rant which in its subject has nothing to do with all the baggage, but expresses the frustration and indignant belligerence that makes everyone suggest yoga.
Whatever.
This is not a positive post. 
But hopefully the phoenix will rise from the ashes.

So, now to begin -

I can not understand these 'guru' types.
- Live in the moment -
- "I am happy because I don't mind what happens" -
- Align the mind and the body - 
- Joy is within you. It is for you to have -
- 'Desire' is a bad word -
- Experience deeply -
Etc .. etc ... and many etcs ...

Live in the moment?
I am a farmer, with borrowed money, no rains in the horizon, with none of the widely announced subsidies. My children go to school because the free meal is the only meal they have through the day. My moment is not a moment I want to live in. The only option I have I will try to keep away till the very end because I am supposed to be the provider, the protector.

"I am happy because I don't mind what happens."
Good for you sitting in your freshly laundered clothes, in the pink of health, with doctors treating a little sneeze like devastating tuberculosis.
You have no idea that one can even worry about such mundanities like struggle or poverty. How can you? You are happy. You have found happiness and contentment with the world and its wife prostrating before you, competing, hurting each other to touch your feet, or for just one glance from you? Why should you climb down from that elevated high-ground?

How often have you seen, a human scavenger?
How often have you carried back-breaking pots of putrid human refuse?

How often have you held a child dying in your arms because you can not afford the simplest possible, the cheapest drug, and the govt. hospital is miles away and that anyway is where your unborn child died because you had a complicated delivery. Not only did they not have a bed, they could not even offer some shade, or even a place where you could breath some air that was not stenching from rotting flesh. So much more could be said ... but no, it will hurt your sensibilities.

So please live in the moment with an aligned mind and body, with the joy that you have found within you and no desire because you have no need that has not been fulfilled.
And do experience deeply the luxury that your groveling disciples try to do a 'pahle me' to provide.

Live your life the way you believe your 'karma' has bought you, but until you can at least try and understand the 'karma' of the little people - do them a favour, save your 'vaani's for those who have the leisure to appreciate them.

Yes I am offended.

'have been since I saw a photograph of one of the many His Holyness-es with His Holy Face and His Holy locks of hair, and His holier than thou posturing.

Footnote: one size does not fit all.
There now, everyone gets an way out