C. Madan's Blog

On Letting Go

The Funeral of a Viking — Frank Bernard Dicksee

“No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.”
- Haruki Murakami

Life is, to a great extent, very hard to endure, the comfort of childhood dissolves in adulthood, the freedom of innocence slowly fades with the understanding of the world and its ways, and facing all these whirlwinds of life, we stand alone, amid all the odds of having company, family, friends, yet the loneliest moment in ones life is when we have to let go of things that mattered the most to us, people who were the closest to us and memories that helped us stay strong.

Letting go, of all the memories of what once was, how we used to live and keep ourselves moving ahead, of all those places that have our footprints imprinted upon their surfaces, of all those people who made us feel loved and showed us that we too have someone to live for. Makes it all a part of life, and letting go is a part of life too, it is, unfortunately the part that shows us, despite having to change every aspect of our life, we can still come out of it alive, and almost every time, stronger than we entered.

“And if letting go was an art, every turn of the road would have an artist trying to master the art and attain perfection…”

Letting go of the person and letting go of the memory of the person are two completely different feats, while letting go of the person is both a physical and mental decision which needs minimal dedication yet a lot of courage and understanding, letting go of a memory of the person, of what you once had with them, of all the days of silent gazes and eternal waiting, of the misunderstandings and understandings, requires a power beyond normal human capabilities. But still, against all its absurdities, it is possible.

[He saw them not as people, he felt them not as strangers, they were his people and their presence — his home. He realized he can only look at the world and its people in two ways, one — those he can trust and feel comfortable around, and two — those whose existence is a mystery to him, and though that aspect of an alien element in your surroundings is thrilling, we end up differentiating between one and the other heavily. But this is not about that differentiation, this is about the transition.]

The transition from one form of understanding to another form. From one form of knowing and familiarity to the other, from loving to forgetting, from staying put, to moving on. Life transitions from the bright to dark shades, but the true impact of those shades lies in how we comprehend and react to their essence, sometimes, there is peace in darkness and even the brightest of lights gives us nothing but hopelessness.

How we relate with people is layered with multiple levels, though it is initially divided into two forementioned forms, the depth of emotionality or just the technicality of the desperation to survive has many branches reaching out their extensive and at times exhausting hands farther into our hearts. But it all comes down to one end, and it is letting go.

And more often than less, the very process of letting go is seen as an aspect of giving up, of quitting, but just like that, less often than more, people rarely chose to understand that letting go demands more strength than staying on. The demands of both these notions are very different, but the common point can be treaded out in pain. Staying on is painful when it is under hopeless circumstances, and giving up, or letting go is even more painful as it is almost same as giving up on the very essence of hope itself. And he who gives up on hope has no argument to prove that he is expecting anything from his life or for his life.

The art of letting go becomes the most essential part of life, as you move along navigating the ups and downs of life, you understand and experience certain things, certain people, certain comforts and discomforts, and in the end when the whole world demands you to put yourself first in order to keep on living, you turn to practicing the art of letting go. Because holding on to what once was, in a society which constantly forces the necessity to change everything around you is something of fighting for a lost cause.

But then again, it is not as easy to do it as it is to say it, sometimes, all you have left to remain in the realms of progressive sanity is the reminiscence of that very past which fell right through your fingers like grans of sand flowing away with the wind.

But in the aftermath of letting go, after having moved on, one walks in the lush green gardens of nymphs and angels that have come down from far up above to show you there is beauty in the aftermath of destruction and and reconstruction. (I don’t believe in nymphs and angels, but I do in beauty…)

“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.”
― Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

Yet the process of letting go is not always the easiest, cause, holding on to those memories and people is the only thing that defines who you are and who you were, it is the only thing that asks you to recall your roots and origins, makes you humble of your life and the successes that have come your way along the flow of time.

So it makes us question — what is it that’s truly worth doing? What is the right thing, staying on or letting go? And the burden of finding the answer is for us to find out, as there is no two fingerprints that are same and no two lives that are exactly the same and is searching for the answers of the same questions.

~ C. Madan

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On Loneliness

New York Movie — Edward Hopper

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

In the starless sky, you seek refuge in the company of the moon. In the blinding brightness of the day, your shadow’s constant stalking makes you feel loved. The distant bird’s call might make your head turn, and the rustling of the dry leaves as you walk over them might make you feel grateful as it is a nature’s acknowledgement of your existence. The many shades of loneliness can be fantasized and imagined to great many desperate extents, yet there are a few shades of that very feeling of solitary abandonment which are hard-hitting and deep.

To understand loneliness, one has to experience good company, just like if one has to appreciate joy, he has to be stung by the wasp of sorrows. To know the true value of one thing, one has to lose it for at least a brief period of time, and that has been the way of life ever since humanity evolved into the unfairly absurd self-consciousness.

And to further add to the absurdity of our existence, the branches of loneliness vary from person to person, for some it is seasonal, and for others it becomes a cancerous sickness with an almost impossible probability to get away from. The psychological aspect of loneliness is far more technical and asks for a well researched expert to talk about it, but there are other aspects which can be explored too, for one, the aesthetic aspect, the philosophical aspect, and most importantly, the human aspect.

To generally romanticize the concept of loneliness is something beyond merely artistic, and it demands for something more than creativity, loneliness is and will remain to be the ill human condition which makes sure to leave behind pangs of life changing experiences and enlightenments which you will be forced to remember for a long time to come. But then again it is something equally necessary, and important.

The realization of loneliness is not always the fault of others, you are not lonely only when you are alone, and if you are feeling lonely in your own company, it will be the first one in the list of things you will have to work on for your own betterment.

“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre

Loneliness is not always about having no one around you, it is also about having people around you yet not belonging, it is about having people to talk to yet not being able to, it is craving for someone’s company that you’ll never have but still sitting in the darkness and hoping the next sunrise might bring some actual light into your life. Oddly, it is not always about not having a shoulder to lean on to, it is also about having had a shoulder to lean on to yet not have the chance of doing the same anymore, loneliness is not just about longing to hold someone’s hand as you walk, knowing you are safe in their presence, loneliness is in having to live the memory of that long gone past and still hoping to get it back once more.

Fortunately loneliness and sadness always don’t walk hand in hand, sometimes it just grips you with an unfathomable fear, of what and how your life will end up amid the darkness of your loneliness, sometimes you just sit there in silence reflecting on how, despite the unfortunate curse of not having anyone to talk to, you have survived and walked out of it alive, you might even take pride in your strength.

Desiring company is as humane, and natural as breathing air, yet the abnormality of being able to find comfort in your own company is a power that is unmatched. Wanting to be with someone who makes us feel loved, also knowing we love them too and in their company we often end up finding the peace and solace that usually lacks in the company of others is a very normal desire, yet to achieve the extent of self-dependence where ones own company is a source of his/her own joy is a different extent of attaining the completeness of life.

And with that comes the difference between loneliness and solitude, when one is a sickness, the other one is actually empowering. To be alone yet still be content, to see oneself in the mirror and look at the reflection as one looks at a dear friend is a superpower, a boon a gift from a greater entity.

I usually do not quote what comes across my path in my academic readings, yet while reading Francis Bacon’s ‘On Friendship’ where he quotes Aristotle saying — “Whosoever is delighted in Solitude, is either a wild Beast or a God.” it can be seen understood that one attains a beyond humane quality solely in his solitude and his solitary meditations.

He who is afraid of his own company, of being all by himself, or of having to listen to his own haunting thoughts is purely human, yet the incompetency of not being able to be self dependent for one’s own happiness is something that unfortunately makes you lack the very essence of living a complete life.

“All great and precious things are lonely.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

But beyond all the difficulties of being human, or even just existing, he who seeks refuge within the constraints of his own comforts is someone who has found a way to live their life without indulging in any form of human connections which more often than less, leads to heartbreaks and pain, though the fear of putting oneself out there can be called cowardice, seeking peace and pleasure within oneself is a superpower.

Yet in the end, it all comes down to one thing, living your life, and to live it completely, I believe there has to be an equal balance on the both aspects of life, the solitude and the companionate.

~ C. Madan

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On Landscapes

Wheat Field with Cypresses — Vincent van Gogh

“I like revisiting, at certain times, spots where I was once happy; I like to shape the present in the image of the irretrievable past.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, White Nights

Often we end up realizing that we feel really connected to certain places after losing touch with them or after travelling or settling somewhere far away from them. Like the bus stop where you used to sit for long hours waiting for the bus that takes you home after an abnormally hard day, or like the park bench where you sit for hours reading and writing, or observing people walking their dogs or even the kids chasing each other. And it’s natural that we romanticize our school days and college days after growing old and boring, and sitting on our verandah porch, in a way, only to reminiscence our past.

But this article is not just about those big places, those places where we have spent hours, often finding and losing our selves. This is also about those places, those landscapes where we haven’t been to that often but still holds a great impact over our lives. This is about those places which are taken for granted at the moment when with its loss, we come to know of their real value.

This is about that one tree you used to sit under when everything in your life was falling apart, and sitting under that tree, you knew, sooner or later everything will turn out to be alright right once again, this is about that one park bench where you realized you can’t depend on others for your happiness, that before you go searching for joy through other people, you have to learn to find it within yourself.

By some absurd work of emotional connectivity, these places, these particular landscapes impact us more than we can phantom, they leave behind a scar, a stain on us (our memory) which though along with the time might seem like it is fading, it will eventually return with a sting of longing for what once was, and the comfort that was lost.

In a way, if we look at it in a certain perspective, we are truly experiencing our life only when we experience both the inner and outer worlds, we are truly alive when we connect ourselves with the deepest darkness's inside us and the varying shades of life’s aesthetics around us.

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche.
― Herman Hesse, Bäume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte

Sometimes, its not just ‘people’ who deeply influence us to be who we are, sometimes it is also the places — like the house we grew up in, the streets we played in, the terraces we flew kites or failed trying to do so. And at times it could be temples where we would go to find solace in that serenity, and it could also be the places that were in fact meant to mould us into suitable citizens — schools.

To everyone who has experienced school life, at some point in their lives, they can’t help but point out the fact that they indeed miss their days of innocence, sitting in the last rows of the classroom, secretly sneaking in the wafers and snacks your friend hid behind his books, knowing there is a gang out there waiting to snatch away his food. And even after he discovers a clean and empty snacks box, he will just accept it and laugh it off knowing if he had done the same with any of the others, they would laugh it off too.

When it comes to the childhood memories, one misses a lot of aspects of their lives, from school days to holidays spent with cousins, the unity that came with the innocence of the age and the ignorance towards the grownup world, and an animated understanding of things in the surroundings, a jovial interpretation of everything that’s happening. The mindset that looks at life as a game. But when it truly comes to nostalgia, we miss some places as much as we miss our younger selves.

School — An Unforgettable Nostalgia
The tree under which students gather to have their lunch after the power cuts in classroom, the resource room which is also a makeshift medical room where students pretend sick and bunk all the afternoon classes, the backyard playground with twin trees so close to each other, one can easily see themselves growing up as they won’t fit to pass through those trees as they grow older, the bicycle stand where you gather with your friends and have long discussions on all the unproven scandalous stories of people who have nothing to do with you in actuality.
The classrooms of your favorite juniors who look at you like an elder brother, and the computer lab where you spend your physics hours listening to music instead of being in your respective classrooms. The gardens where there are no flowers, but with friends and playmates, everything seems more brighter and colorful.
The corridors where you were sent to stand in for not completing your assigned home works, and the trees and squirrels you stare at without any regrets or shame because you’re not standing there alone, your default gang of defaulters are out there with you. And the widow, that one window that faces the school entrance and from the moment you enter your classroom you keep looking out, nervous and anxious — wondering, waiting for the person you were looking forward to see that day. In the moments like these, that window becomes a portal that brings peace and joy to your soul.

School Bus — An Abundance of Serendipity
You don’t get to decide who you sit with, you don’t get to plan out how your life turns out by the end of the day, you get to learn that nothing is stable, and you can’t always have the window seat on the row. Sometimes you don’t want that journey to end, and sometimes you feel like you can’t survive another minute of that journey, sitting with six others in a seat that should lawfully only adjust four people.
The early morning waiting in your street corner waiting for the school van to show up, and the dogs that bark at you or the cats that run past you, the old man who notices your abnormally huge watch against the lean structure of your hand and asks you what the time is.
The kids who huddle up in the back seat and play along with you, and in that moment you forget of all your heartbreaks and backbreaking assignments, the squeaking seats that seem like they might fall apart any moment as the driver rides ahead into potholes and speed breakers, the sound speaker that is hell bent on making your music listening experiences as chaotic as possible.

Houses — The Hard-hitting Beginning
Some would have lived all their lives in a single home, and some would have shifted into multiple houses, to those who constantly move, the feeling of home, the safety and peace might mainly depend on the people they live with, but to someone who has live in and grew up in a single house, their attachment to the place is far more deeper and intangible.
Our home is the first place where we learn to walk, to talk, to look at the world and understand it, more than these physicality's, it is in our home where we find our first comforts and separate our discomforts.

Random Places — The Goodbye Memory/The Last Sighting
Some places hold an abnormally high significance to you, and one of the many reasons is because, they are the goodbye sites, the places where we see our loved ones, people who are close to us, for the last and final time. In some cases, we might get to meet them again, and in some cases, that goodbye will be the last thing we’ll ever get to tell them. These places, for a very obvious reason hold a unique place in our hearts, we feel connected to them, not always in our physical realms as the flow of time will erode that place of our material memory, yet after years, with the deeply rooted memory still in our hearts, if we visit those places in future, and stand in the same place as we once did, sometime in our age old past, for one moment, at least for a second as our heart beats into that ancient memory, our soul will join hands with that age old memory, that old self of us…

~ C. Madan

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On Being In Love

Flaming June — Frederic Leighton

“They asked ‘Do you love her to death?’
I said “speak of her over my grave and watch how she brings me back to life”
― Mahmoud Darwish

He is sitting on his bed, the window screens are wide open, the sunlight is pouring in through the glass panes. The morning sun has risen, and he has risen too, but there is this empty feeling that takes over him. Even with all that light surrounding him, there is a darkness within that will never be enough for the light to conquer. A heavy weight lands on his shoulders, pushing him back into the comfort of his bed, into the tranquility and ignorance of sleep.

Then his phone rings, its just a notification, a ‘good morning’ message, and as if by a charm his gloomy morning actually becomes a ‘good’, in fact a great morning. Its not the message, or even the intention behind it, he probably receives tens of messages like that, and of course even though words do have a great impact on us, when its the right words from the right person, the very strength it gives off makes us feel infinite. And to have felt that ecstasy in life, at least once, is a boon.

And so he wakes up, with all traces of the emptiness that conjured him minutes ago abruptly disappearing, completely vanishing into the hidden caves beyond the horizons of his consciousness. He looks at himself in the mirror and smiles, he knew what was happening, he knew why he smiled for the first time in days.

The fact that his wallet was stolen, that he almost missed the deadline to submit the project work, that his higher official scolded him mercilessly for a small mistake he committed, and the disappointment that all along the flow of his life, he had never once experienced success, and that failure was his constant companion in every job he took up. Everything went away from his mind, all his pains and sorrows cured in one go. Even that feeling of something heavy stirring his soul and holding weight against the walls of his beating heart disappeared.

He knew his day started right then, the moment his phone rang. Because sometimes you don’t need God or some miracle to feel alive, all you need is a person who you know loves you.

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

It might sound like a cliche, but when you are in love, your world truly does change, not literally, but the way you see the world around you changes, which makes you believe that the whole world itself has changed.

But as human beings who have lived and evolved for long enough to learn many aspects of life, we do know that everything has two sides to it, pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, peace and rage, even the moon has a dark side that haunts us more than the bright side. And love is of no exception, unfortunately.

To see people in love is beautiful, but to be in love, to go through all the ups and downs, pains and pleasures, heartbreaks and earthquakes, and hopefully the eventual peace of being with the one you love is something that requires more than the basic desire to love or to be loved. To fall in love is to endure, to understand and to adjust. But its not everyone’s cup of tea, though there is a trick for that too, and it lies in finding someone who is worth changing yourself for! In other words — the right person.

Someone whose smile vanishes your sadness, someone whose joy is of your concern, someone who will love you for all your imperfections and you do the same for them, in a way someone whose imperfections make them perfect for you.

Being in love does not and will never have a definite explanation, with the many kinds of hearts that fall in love, many kinds of loves takes birth too, someone born out of sheer loneliness, someone born out of pure passion, someone a result of childhood innocence, and someone out of physical desires, and at times love is born out of pure devotion too. Like the love of Qais for Laila.

And to write about love, one cannot expect to do justice to it through a single article, and one can never find a perfect definition to the ecstasy of that emotion, yet we the hopeless writer of yore keep trying…

For generations, many writers and poets have written on this subject, through books and poems that tell us the stories of pure romance or of a broken heart in search of love, at times even the stories of unfathomable obsessions. But one thing is common in all their stories of romances and it is Love.

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever.”
― Alfred Tennyson

And so you walk along the shores in the evening, waiting for the sunset knowing she will be doing the same, you sleep under the stars knowing she will be counting the falling stars too, you feel overwhelmed with the fact that you are living on the same land she is walking in and breathing the same air that surrounds her.

This is not the kind of love that is calculated, that is counted and accounted for, his is the hopeless kind of love, like the love of Selene for Endymion, Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, Kafka and Milena, Nabokov and Vera, and so on…

This is the kind of love that makes you believe your world revolves around the person you love, that their happiness makes you happy and your happiness makes them feel the same way, and that’s how it feels like when you’re waiting for love, when you are in love, but there’s an aftermath for everything, there’s an aftermath of love. That’s when life starts to play its cards, and demands from us to show our true self.

Yet again, this is not about what comes after, this is about what happens when you are in love, to be in love and to love someone more than you love yourself, not just to have someone to die for, but to have someone to live with. To be in love knowing you will get hurt from time to time and you will end up hurting them from time to time yet understanding our mistakes and changing ourselves, just so that when you wake up the next morning, you wake up next to them, and when you brush your teeth, you don't have to bother about whose brush it is, and when you see your shirts and sweatshirts missing from your wardrobe, you know who is wearing them.

The many promises of love vary from person to person, but then again there are some quirks that are poetically deep.

To be in the kind of love where you are sitting together in silence staring into the nothingness yet feel complete and alive, the kind of love where words are not the only way to communicate, where silences and subtle actions are understood mutually too.

And in this occasion of understanding love, here is my favorite poem on the subject…

One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII
By Pablo Neruda
Translated By Mark Eisner

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

From: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/

~ C. Madan

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On Nostalgia

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer

“The Greek word for “return” is nostos. Algos means “suffering.” So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.”
― Milan Kundera, Ignorance

A cold winter morning, you are waiting for your school van, a couple of sparrows flutter their wings around the newly blossomed flowers of your garden, the sun is playing hide and seek behind the early morning clouds. As you stand there, outside the gates of your home, a sudden fear grips you, you haven’t completed the assigned homework, the teacher is strict, you want to go back, miss the school bus and come up with some reason to tell your parents. It’s better to stay bored at home all day than to face your teacher’s wrath. And then again, just as suddenly as that fear gripped you, another feeling enthralls you, your whole body feels this new found energy highly ecstatic, yes, there is a better reason to go to school, to face the wrath of that teacher whose assigned work you did not complete.

As you get on in the van and settle down in the seat that has been self-assigned to you for as long as you can remember, the speakers of the bus slowly tune in a rhythm, your favorite melody song starts playing, the cold breeze from the open windows surrounds you to carry you to the other side of this world. To the dimension that will change you forever.

Your young heart is unable to define this feeling, all you know is, when you see the person that your heart leaps up to see from the moment you wake up, you will feel like you are truly alive, that your life has a meaning and in the casual darkness of your existence you have found the ray of light that brightens your world.

The perfect combination of innocence and extravagant emotions define the meaning of that initial period of your life. The question of right or wrong, fear or courage - disappear, friends, fun, and being with the one who conquered every kingdom of your heart, that’s all that matters to you.

Some say home is a place, and others say home is a person, but what if — home is a memory?

Times change and with the flow of life people change too, even though you try to be in the present and even though the very nature of existence forces you to move on from your memories of past, there will be certain moments, certain events, and a certain people who will keep coming back to your memory, like an unsinkable ship that keeps returning to float on the surface. Like the dancing dolls that never fall even when pushed down constantly, again and again.

“There is no greater sorrow
Than to recall a happy time
When miserable.”
― Dante Alighieri

Like the time when you knew a fun teacher is entering the classroom and all the sufferings from the boring classes has come to an end, or like the time when your exams were coming and none of your friends had prepared or studied and that somehow validates your own lack of preparation, and the time a teacher helped you with the answers for multiple choice questions that helped you pass the exam. And amid these many million memories hide the golden moments, like how you wait for the lunch hour to come, even though you are not hungry, just because you know a certain someone will try to sit as near to you as possible, and their presence, distant yet close adds to the preexisting energy of your soul, making you feel like you’re on top of the world.

Like those moments your gazes meet and the whole wide world around you stops, freezes in that moment and all that you thought once mattered becomes insignificant, and the only thing that will be of consideration now will be the paradise you were in, at that moment. Because you know, even with the infinite possibilities out there for you, without this feeling you cannot achieve anything.

Life has its own ways of teaching us how to live, the remembrance of those lessons is called memories, and the desire to relive those lessons is what I think is nostalgia.

The closer the memory is to your heart, in a good shade or in a bad shade, it will be remembered, and it will be triggered at the right time, the right moment. It doesn’t have to be recalled as it was, or as it actually happened, sometimes your consciousness alters your memories as you want to see them, thus blinding you of the truth of what actually happened.

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”
― Marcel Proust

Good memories that make you who you are, bad memories that taught you — who you should be and how you shouldn’t be, they are the ones that shape us, the ones that mould us into the people we turn out to be in future, and after a lot of adjustments and remakes, if you are lucky you’ll understand who you are, what your purpose is, or you might even live on with the fact that life has no need of a specific purpose to be lived with.

Memories are like portable magic, like time machines, you can go back in time without having to move from you present, yet every time you revisit that point in time you see it differently. Whoever the creator is, he gave us the capability to think, to remember yet not re-experience. That too if we look at it in that aspect that there is a creator. And if we don’t, who else do we have to blame for our incapability of going back in time other than ourselves? Some might even ask, why go back in time when you can focus on the present and future. Well, the very concept of nostalgia is to experience the moments of your past, and the only way to do that is to be in that moment, with that mindset, at the same situation, both physically and mentally. And that is a lost cause to fight for.

But the feeling of nostalgia has a different essence to it, a complete magic that almost makes you suffer in a soothing way, there is that hint of pain in wanting to go back in time, and a pinch of joy with the realization that you’ve actually lived through and spent those days and your life wasn’t completely in vain.

Now when talking about nostalgia, we cannot miss out on talking about memories, and how stubborn some of them can be.

You’ve had a busy day, you’ve come too far in your life that when you’re in the right mood you have no reason to think of all those days that went by and moved past you, all you will focus on will be the present, the people who are surrounding you at this moment, at this particular point in time. But then out of nowhere you see something, a backpack with a familiar design, someone calling someone else with a familiar name, a tune playing in someone’s mobile phone and like a snap it takes you back in time, plays that distant memory in repeat, you start to feel like that younger self, that alter ego of yours that slowly faded into oblivion along the timeline.

These little reminders, they play a major part in our lives. It is at times beyond our power about how we associate music/songs, fragrances, colors or designs to particular memories or to particular people, but it happens, subconsciously, and when its time to rise comes, it will eventually dig deep trenches in your memory’s field and leave you static and scarred for the time being.

That’s when the nostalgia kicks in, that deep longing to go back in time, to live your past, to be that old carefree and innocent self once again, to be hopelessly in love yet deal with the pain of heartbreak, to remember all those moments when you sit alone in the classroom before the morning prayer and look towards the main gate through the open windows to see if the person who is the reason behind your coming to school will be present or not, and when they’re absent you slowly pull yourself back into that camouflage that’ll help you disappear from the attention span of every other person around you.

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd — The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.”
― Fernando Pessoa

Nostalgia is almost always associated with the past, though many great philosophers and thinkers ask you to leave behind your past and focus on the present and future, it becomes hard to convince some people of this aspect of life’s philosophy. For they find a certain comfort in living in the past, reaching out their hands towards the ghosts of all those who left them or they left behind along the passing of time.

Past is not just a part of you that demands to be forgotten, there are parts of it that leaves you with regrets, making you hope that we can go back in time and undo that one thing that changed the way how the person who matters the most to you sees you, or thinks of you. Now, that can be unhealthy when it is not driven in the right direction. There are parts of our past that shaped us into who we are, that gives us a reason to live to, that reminds us that we have a purpose in life, and then there are those moments which makes you feel like you want to go back in time just to relive those moments, to experience that heart filling joy once more.

Past, memories, reminiscence, nostalgia — these are the interlinked aspects of our lives that not only pull us backward but also at times gives us the power to go forward and move ahead. There are many shades to these feelings, to these emotions, and different people have their own perception of how they deal with this sudden surge of impossible longing to re-live the past. I had my own ways too, one of them being poetry.

In my first collection of poems titled ‘The Poetic Refuge’, I’ve composed a mediocre poem titled — “Take Me Back…”, which deals with this feeling of nostalgia, the longing to go back in time and be that young innocent self once more, and relive the moments of that long lost past.

~ C. Madan

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Until We Meet Again…

The Kiss — Gustav Klimt

Goodbyes are to give us a closure, but what if we parted without a good enough closure? What if our souls had not yet accepted that our parting is our final meeting, that this will be the last time we will ever see each other.

The longing to see that person once more, to tell them that you cherish the times you had together, or if it is not cherishing, you want to let them know how you felt in their company.

I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.
- Pi Patel, Life of Pi

Some goodbyes are hard, and some people don’t even deserve a send off, but it is inevitable that people will come into our lives, for better or for worse and ever single person who comes, alters our flow of life to some extent, sometimes its too great that their presence will be unforgettable, and sometimes its too short that even though we forget the person and their face the alteration in our life will be undisturbed.

But then there are those whom we want to meet again and again yet our circumstances go against us. This is a poem in honor of all those people I’d like to meet again…

The sun always sets to raise again,
yet your departure was to never return.

In the absurd circumstance of life’s beat,
it was hard to realize,
that it will be the last time our gazes meet.

That distant memory of your last smile,
the glint in your eyes that lit up the world,
and this heart of mine which took it all for granted,
realized too late that it was your presence
that my heart wanted.

‘Until we meet again’
my heart tries to reason with me,
yet deep inside I know.
This parting will be the last time
my tired old eyes gazed upon your soul’s beauty.

‘Until we meet again’
says the voice inside me.
Yet my heart had halted right then,
to wait for you, for your return,
this hopeless longing stinging like a bee.

And like an old man waiting for his death,
I waited for you too,
for I knew…

The moment my eyes were laid upon you,
my heartbeats will transcend to something anew…

~ C. Madan

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How different the world seems when you’re in love!

The Swing (Springtime) — Pierre Auguste Cot

Anyone who has lived long enough will know how our perspective on life changes along with the changes in our emotional stability, how we feel about ourselves and within ourselves strongly decides how we see the things happening around us. Happiness, sadness, fear, melancholy and many other shades of our emotions largely impact how we see the world.

And Love — being in love, is one such magical mindset, a beautiful state of mind that intensifies the magic in every moment of life, being in love makes us both forget the world and truly live in it all at once. Even death seems reasonable when its with the one you love.

“To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die…”
- The Smiths

(Yes, I just quote a song to prove my point…)

Now, love as a focused subject is very vast, very complicated and is completely hard to comprehend easily. Yet, it plays a central part in our lives. A mother’s never-ending love for her child, a dog’s faithful love for its owner or a young man’s blind love for someone who snatched his heart away from him. Love captivates us in many shades, makes our life both joyful and miserable at the same time, gives us both the pleasure and pain, the pleasure of being in love and being loved, and the pain of letting go of the one you love when time demands it. And inevitably time will demand it.

But that moment, that one particular space in time when your heart is filled with an unfathomable zeal, something that is completely new to your soul, you will see the world in a whole new perspective. There would seem to be a new sprinkle of freshness added to the nature around you, the colors of the leaves and flowers, rocks and rivers, skies and seas will look as if the Gods sent angels down from heaven to paint your surroundings anew. The rabid dog that always disgusted you will earn your sympathy for the first time, your will start to be grateful for being alive in the same world as the person you love.

And then as the love deepens, every little danger starts to scare you, not for your own safety but for the wellbeing of your loved ones, you know you will risk your life to save theirs, all your adventures will suddenly feel pointless, all your friends seem distant, and all the world seems as if it was just built to keep you in the same physical space as your loved ones.

You’ll see a whole world woven in the depths of her eyes, as if not looking into them will leave you paralyzed, when you hold her hands, you feel your soul stepping out of your body for it knows it can’t be contained within the constraints of your physicality. And the assurance that she feels the same when she holds your hands will make your heart leap up with joy.

Your life will seem fulfilled, all your dreams are aspirations get a new meaning and you work towards them with a different yet renewed enthusiasm than before. You know you have found your reason to be motivated, to stay inspired. There will be a constant bell ringing in your heart, reminding you that your existence is not pointless after all, though your never felt your existence to be pointless in the first place, there seems to be a new meaning added to the life you lead.

Finally your heart will no longer seek for the silence of the solitude. You will no longer feel the need to keep yourself happy for you have found someone who will be the source of your joy, an your feel an undeniable pride in being her source of joy. You know there will be heartbreaks but knowing her, you decide its a risk worth taking. For all you know, your heart would feel content by being in love and have your heart broken than leave behind any hope of the love that has knocked at your door.

For most part you’ll not even know its love, your mind and body will drown in its ecstasy though you are confused to make sense of all the reactions your heart and soul are having. You try to figure it out by yourself yet you fail miserably. You suffer at your lack of hold on the situation, yet the new found joy will finds its way to overshadow your baseless suffering.

Eventually as the time passes the magic seems to fade, all that which felt out of ordinary will seem normal again, all those blue skies will fade into insignificance, the flowers that were same as ever will lose their brightness, you will walk along hand in hand with the normality of your life. But then again, on a special occasion or during a tired evening when you are back from work, you look at your loved ones and feel grateful to them for being a part of your life.

The magic will rise again, the enchantments will take form and play with your mind, her eyes that you almost took for granted will go on in keeping you captivated.

Yes, life will be boring, life has become lifeless with the modernity of our choiceless existence, with the term ‘love’ turned into some superficial phenomenon, and being in love became a social status. But to those who have found the old school love, and still have your hearts uncorrupted by the modernity and are staying responsible towards the ones you love and the ones who love you, the world will seem entirely different than it is to others.

But this is not about being in love throughout your life, this is on that moment of epiphany, that moment which enlightens you. That moment which decides the course of your entire life…

And to call this post to conclusion I’d like to share my favorite sonnet of Pablo Neruda’s which is almost like a love’s anthem for its readers…

Sonnet XVII ― Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:

where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

And this has been my love anthem for a long time!

~ C. Madan

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The Identity of an Artist (Cinema Edition)

The Studio Boat (Le Bateau-atelier) — Claude Monet

It came to a single choice, and I had to choose whether to make this post long and philosophical or short and meaningless, and I chose to make this long and yes — philosophical. But to not make this too long, I am going to be a little straight forward.

The inspiration for this article came to me while I was re-watching one of my all time favorite films — The Green Book, and this scene which was quite emotional when I last watched the movie made me sit and think for a while this time, and thus came the idea for this article.

I am not only writing this article for you, I am writing this partly for myself too. For, the question that this scene made me ask myself intensified the pre-existing doubt hidden among many other doubts in the depths of my confused head, this is the kind of question I think every artist is faced with in their pursuit of success.

The scene -

Green Book, Dir. Peter FarrellyGreen Book, Dir. Peter Farrelly

Before I start to address how this scene affected me, I want to make something clear, though the title suggests this article to be focused on understanding the identity of an artist, I will, at times drift off into others arguments which will support my idea of this question, and my thought process which helps me understand the question better. Also, to add to it, this article will also focus on the beauty of quotes and dialogues in The Green Book and other movies on art as well.

Those who have watched the movie know the context of this scene, and those who haven’t, its too late already, don’t miss out on it for too long. The question that came to me was not because of the racial discriminations or the sexual preferences of the character in the movie. It is something more general, more simpler and more obvious.

By saying if I am not black enough, he tells how his career has changed his stature among his people, by asking if I am not white enough he brings out the inequality he faces despite having talent, just because he is differently colored. And by saying if I am not man enough, he addresses his sexual preferences and how it is not accepted by the society.

And the question that made me think is this…

Who is an artist beyond his art?

I am an overthinker so don’t ask me how I came to this question from the above scene. I did, and here I am writing about it.

I have been a reader for a long time, and an admirer of arts, even longer. When I was young, it was not just stories that fascinated, the stars, the moon and the darkness beyond, everything enthralled, thus I recall my first ambition to be an astronaut (Spoiler Alert — I am a writer and a poet!)

If there was one thing that I observed, it is that many serious authors, artists have lost their true identity in the process of earning themselves a name through their art. Its not just like the word forgetting Eric Blair after he became famous as George Orwell or how many don’t know who Robert Zimmerman is unless you mention his other name — Bob Dylan.

It is the very core identity that changes, it is not just how the people call you which changes, the way you see yourself changes too, and often that change takes you away from the people you used to be accustomed to, and were friends with (from the experiences of many writers).

So, who is an artist beyond his art? We often see debates rise while talking about artists such as Picasso or Polanski, there are those who straight forward dismiss these people as artists for deeds in their personal lives, and there are those who argue to differentiate art and the artist, and there are those who believe that he became the person he is due to his art.

Yes, arts are a very demanding field, like many jobs restricted to certain hours, artists have no given timing, no one knowns when inspiration might strike, making a writer wake up at the middle of the night and trace all over the table to find his glasses, or a painter who controls his sleep and waking to see that one moment between his dreams and waking and paint it (or that’s what Dali is known to have done).

Before I drift off more, let me bring back the main topic to the question at hand and address it with another quote from the same movie.

Green Book, Dir. Peter Farrelly

Artists are passionate people, and I am not just saying this to bring out the difference of letter writing skills of Tony and Doc in this scene, artists are passionate people, some are passionate about their life, some are passionate about love and romance, and some go with the absurdism of existence, also there are those who are passionate with their own pain and suffering, and romanticize it in their works.

The above quote, ‘Falling in love with you was the easiest thing I’ve ever done’ is indeed romantic in many levels. And this shows the passion in the words of Dr. Don Shirley, but this is not the only movie where passion is radiated though words, being an artist presents you with so many difficulties, and being well read adds so much competence to the way you articulate your words that the combination of both becomes an art worthy of admiration.

Yes, I have still not straight forwardly answered the question, and now I am starting to think one answer cannot satisfy everyone, but the argument that satisfied me is this — An artist is whatever his art is, he will be recognized by his art, for the man will pass, but the legacy he leaves behind will stick around, and leaving behind his art is the greatest legacy one can leave behind.

So, the identity of an artist majorly comes through his art.

Now, you might ask — so what? A doctor’s identity is in the lives he saves, an architect’s identity is in the buildings he builds and this goes with many professions. Yes, it is true, but being an artist asks for more from its pursuer than what its takes to be almost anything else, and what it is, you shall find soon.

Green Book, Dir. Peter Farrelly

But what does it cost them as a person? What will they gain and what will they lose? There are those who live happily with their families and have children and lead a fairy tale life, and there are those artists, or authors who are left alone, sitting in their gloomy rooms, penning down their absurdity and gathering courage to present it to the world.

Fortunate or unfortunate, being an artist demands more from a person than just passion and talent and a hard working nature. Some say success is highly based on luck, and at times every failing artist has to accept the fact and blame fate for his failure since their piece of work seems more deserving and precious in comparison to many successful works.

But many tend to believe it is not just luck, it is purely talent. And God forbid, it is true, in quite a few cases.

Yet, for the most part, most artists are lonely people reaching out to touch the glory their keep dreaming of. Loneliness is not just a force that moves an artist forward, it is in a way, the only path where an artist finds himself and his true style. It might seem like I am advocating loneliness, though the actual and more appropriate term is solitude. And the difference between loneliness and solitude? I think you know what it is.

The Fabelmans, Dir. Steven Spielberg

This dialogue from The Fabelmans which is a semi autobiographical movie of Steven Spielberg made one thing clear to me, the world has seen a lot about the successful artists who have lived and are living a happy life with their families and friends, but how many of us have had the mind to think of those who try harder than anyone and still fail? What happens to them?

The last image in the above attached pictures speak the truth loudly. By being an artist and by pursuing arts, you’ll be a shanda (shame) for your loved ones, and that is the truth of it.

Now its time to answer the question, the difference between other professions and an artist, the pre-written statements which I am yet to elaborate on — ‘but being an artist asks for more from its pursuer than what its takes to be almost anything else’, and here is the answer.

For most of the other jobs, people still hold a lot of dignity in the society and in their community, their family will respect them and boast of their choice of profession even if they haven’t succeeded yet, but when it comes to someone who is pursuing arts, it abruptly becomes a badge of shame for the family.

“You’ll be a shanda for your loved ones…”

Yes, it has been proved to be true in many cases, especially in this modern world where the whole of humanity is moved forward by technology and has a great need for doctors, being an artist is a brave move. Especially when there is no one around you who support your choices.

But still we do it, why? Why do we endure all those looks of disapproval and disgust and still pursue our dream to be a poet, a novelist, a painter or a musician?

It’s because -

~ C. Madan

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Into The Woods — What the nature taught me?

Into The Woods — What the nature taught me?©Bob Ross — Winter Night

Amid the richness of this modern life, old souls have never found peace living among the buildings reaching the sky, narrowed into hollow corridors and out of the reach from sunlight and natural breeze.

There is a subtle yearning in our hearts, a hidden desire, a wanting, a longing for something beyond normalcy, something that cannot be found between the confines of apartment blocks or housing communities with all the necessary amenities.

A restless heart is familiar with this feeling, a frustrated soul is aware of this longing, and of course it is a very natural thing, a wanting for something that is beyond most of our reach. Fortunate for me, a retreat from the hustle and bustle of a city life amid the smoke and dust, honking and riding is close enough.

More or less often I either find myself in a bookstore or among the tress, I often find that there is a certain magical aspect in being among the woods, a rare satisfaction.

“I don’t feel particularly proud of myself. But when I walk alone in the woods or lie in the meadows, all is well.”
― Franz Kafka

Humanity has evolved into modernity, but losing the touch with nature has caused us to not care about our surroundings, I am not going to make this article all about how our existence has ruined the prospect of the real beauty of Earth (though it is completely obvious by now), we have become the major reason behind the depletion of many natural factors.

Still, there is something ecstatic about living with nature, waking up to the fields of greenery, and breathing in the unpolluted air. But it is not just the physical health that develops by living among trees, the perks of being a nature nerd enhances our mental health as well.

Personally, I have always found myself at peace around trees and rivers, the flow of water, the chirping birds, the croaking frogs and rustling leaves, the very description of natural surroundings gives off peace and tranquility.

To those who believe there is more to life than relationships, friends, money, fame and success, natural retreats give the answers to all the existential questions, a few years ago as I was reading a book titled Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, I couldn’t help but be inclined towards the relationship between the ferryman and the nature surrounding him.

Books will teach us all about the prospect of life and living, but real lessons are found in living with nature and its realities. The lessons the nature teaches, from a snake swallowing a frog to a goat giving birth, there is philosophy in every aspect of nature and the lessons I have learned are innumerable.

Before I write of the lessons I have learned from nature and leave it to the readers to call it absurd or obscure, I would like to ask you to take some time off too, and spend a few moments with nature, let that be with the trees in your backyard or a stroll into the woods.

~ C. Madan

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A Writer Lives Forever

Leonid Pasternak — The Passion of Creation

Isn’t this a beautiful prospect?
A writer lives forever, in a way they are immortal…

But is it just the writers who are immortal? Well, to an extent, everyone who has contributed to add to the arts, sciences, and other developments that take forward humanity are immortal, they will be remembered, but not as much as a writer.

One cannot make a physical or emotional impact on another person, long after their death, without being a writer (or a ghost), from Chaucer to Shakespeare, from Dickens to Munro, all those writers who passed away will still keep on making an impact on the lives of the readers through their art.

A writer lives forever, not only because he creates a piece of art with his name on it, its because he creates a world that will completely absorb the reader, the admirer of his art. He speaks to us through his books, and his words resonate with our life, our sufferings and our plightful journey.

The act of creating a complete world is godly, and the art of creating characters in that world, whose words are your ideologies, who dialogues took birth from your consciousness, is one of the aspects that makes a writer an immortal in people’s memories.

“You don’t really die when your heart stops. You die when you’re forgotten.”
― Taylor Adams, Hairpin Bridge

A writer’s name is brought up so often that most of the names have become quite household, their quotes become a common part of household conversations and their legacy is eternal in bookstores and libraries.

But an author’s art is not for everyone, and that’s an obvious fact. Nonetheless, he lives forever.

A few weeks ago, as I was browsing though a pile of books in some corner of a second hand book store, I found an old copy of Pickwick Papers, it wasn’t printed and bound in my country, and according to some stamps, it belonged to a library in some distant nation’s remote town. The condition of the book was so fragile that it instinctively reflected all the people who would have borrowed it, read it, shared the anecdotes of reading the book with their friends and family, and along with it comes the name of the master behind its tale — Charles Dickens.

In a way, I find myself often lost among the piles of old and abandoned books, and amid their presence, I find solace, for I know, even though most of the writers of the books from that pile have died, a part of their soul is still intact in their books, in whichever corner the copy might be, and whoever the reader is.

The art of writing is so intense and beautiful that, for me personally, I can never be satisfied with what I write however beautiful; the people say it is, my writing will always be mediocre to me and that inspires me to learn and write better (though I often fail to do so).

~ C. Madan

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