flowing south

I was named after one of the two rivers in my country that flows the other way. While rest of the rivers flow from south to north, these two rivers due to some strange geographical arrangements flow from south to north. Later in school days, one of my teachers didn't buy this truth ( he had lived overseas his entire life before) so he changed my spelling. Yes, where I grew up, schools ran for 8 hours and teachers had veto when it came to changing names of their pupils if they felt it was the right thing to do.

So, I was no longer the river that flowed from south to north, but something that connoted a flower! "Great!" I thought, at fourteen I felt it was better to be a flower than a strange river. And I was already a 'strange enough  kid' so change of name was more than welcomed. My father had a fit though when I took the report cards home and he saw that the name he so lovingly gave me was mutilated. But it was too late to do anything, my name was already officially registered in the education system.

Later there would be a phase where a set of people still called me by my old name and another set of people who would call me by the new, flowery name. Still further down the line, there will be another mishap where the people at passport division would rename me again! So, since my birth I got three different names and a paper with many colourful stamps from all concerned government departments confirming that all three person of such, such and such names are the same.

When I think about it, I know the name that my father kept is the most suitable one for me. I can relate to it now, though I hated it when I had to explain what it meant to people all the time. I still do not understand why people ask what the meanings of a person's name is? It is not that you can predict anything with it! People are born to the names somebody has already thought/decided for them, except for cases where one chooses a name change later in life.

The other day, while I was waiting for the train, I caught a reflection of mysef on the glass separator. my reflection became prominent in my mind. It seemed to ask me, what if I was named something else, some other flower, or river, or thing! Would that have made any different impact on my life? What does this name hold for me? Then I felt this strong urge to burst out of my skin and transpire... not even evaporate.. but just jump the mid stage of change and become a part of ether. I wish to be more than a mere name and I have nothing but this name to hold on to as an identity.

I was going through some images and came across one of dark skinned fishermen, who seemed to be flying over the sea waves. And that instant, I wanted to be the fisherman who sat ever so patiently on one bamboo stalk bracing the incoming wave as he waited for a fish to take a bait. I wanted to be that bamboo stalk that held the fisherman ever so patiently against the force of gravity and motion. I wanted to be that wave, that fish, those sand particles... I wanted to be everything and nothing!

I have never believed in rat race that plagues the modern soul. The need to prove that you are better than the rest. What for? Why? Each soul is individual and unique piece of a gigantic mosiac of life that is infinitly small in comparison to the giant of the universe that houses it. And if there ever is a need for race, let it be with one's own. Self actualisation comes on the top tier of modern economist's theories, whereas it should come right after the basic needs. If this change were to happen even in the tiniest fraction of humanity, the world would see drastic changes.

However, we, human are in my opinion becoming more out of tune with our own universe. The advancement of science has made us proud to the borderline of being arrogant. we think we can harness the wind so we can harness power of nature, we can laser gun meteores out of existence before it even hits the outer of our stratrosphere, we can create clones, we can revive stopped hearts. We have become almost blinded with all our human achievements that we have stopped listening to natures signs. We no longer stop to hear the music of wind, when was the last time you stopped what you were doing and gazed at the sky to marvel at the universe, count stars, name shapes in the clouds? When have you smiled at a stranger without expecting a smile back?

We talk through our life like we are travelling in the subway these days. We do not even make eye contact let alone talk to strangers. We do not wish to sing out of tune and make absurd music with whatever we have in our hands when we want to make music.  We live in fear. We facebook each other rather than write hand written letters ( which reminds me that I have decided to start writting letters to a friend, we are going to go back to the blotchy papers and ink pens, licking stamps and anticipating answers, excercising our imagination on endless possibilities the folded paper would hold inside it).

I am not a technology hater, I just wish we were more connected in other ways than the energy comsuming, eye sight destroying plasma screens and electronic medium which transforms human emotions into mere bytes. That we could break new grounds in stem cell research and yet not forget to understand the importance of simplicity of nature. Let science explore new frontiers, and still let our human soul have faith in something more than number crunchers and formulas alone. Let us not lose touch with our more intutive side, the one that nurturs, wonders and marvels.

When I sometimes talk like this, I get odd looks. But what can you expect?  I have my eccentricities, I have my passions. I am someone who can live a pauper life, but not a life that lacks inspiration. I am the river that flows south... I am like this.