Full Circle

Call it an overactive imagination or plain simple Karma but if I sit back and recollect incidents from my past when I screamed “Murder!” from the rooftops, I see why they have come to me; why they have come BACK to me.

Everything I’ve been subjected to emotionally has sprung from the seeds that I’ve sown a long time ago. And though I’ve had excellent reasons to believe that my actions were justified, I seem to have missed the other’s point of view by a few millimeters and gone ahead with my impulses anyway. Only to let it come back to me from a similar lesser knowing mortal who, regardless of how well I wish anyway, knows not how dearly he shall have to pay… But such is the cycle of Karma I guess…

A symbol of immortality: The Möbius strip in the shape of a trefoil knot

So I studied in college that senescence sets in as the body’s defense mechanism against repeated multiplication of diploid cells resulting in uncontrolled amassing called cancer. For all its sound scientific explanations, it still didn’t kill my desire for immortality. Yes, I do wish to live forever. One life’s way too short to see it all, learn it all leaving us with little time to experience the mystique of nature and culture. The concept of death compels us to make our choices wisely, opt for the shortest route to success and pick and choose our deepest desires to accomplish before our time on earth is done.

I wish I could live amidst a different culture every two years, learn their language, relish their food, follow their customs, celebrate their festivals, wear their ethnic garments, meet people from a different background and hear their stories… India itself houses so many cultures that an entire lifetime would fall short to understand; I cannot even start to scrape the canvas of the world! Haven’t traveled much at all and the internet has been my window to the world where I so long to be…

I’ve always celebrated languages. Spoken Kannada in Maharashtra and Marathi in Karnataka; taken pride in rudimentary German sentences constructed with little grace; embarrassed myself amongst north Indians with amateur grasp of Hindi and waxed and waned eloquence periodically with English!

Meeting people and understanding them is another activity that completely captivates me. No judgements passed, mere comparisons of people from a different backgrounds and the difference in their thought processes interests me tremendously. Each person has a unique story and their experiences make them the person they are. Some guarded, others still believing in the goodness of the world… like me...! And though I have spent years meeting new people and have a huge friend circle, my craving for knowing more is insatiable, knowing well that each one has a unique story to tell…