Throughout my growing years, I had witnessed death anniversaries rituals more than festivity. My late grandparent’s death anniversary function took place always in our family residence. There were a few rare memories of festive seasons’ celebration.
The Conservative Brahmin-Iyer community have so many festivals around the year. To celebrate it, the family usually have a separate budget planned out. There are two celebration that we never fail to celebrate and that was Diwali and Pongal.
Moreover, all these celebrations are more about food and some ritualistic practices. On rare years when no triple extended family members don’t pass away, we would celebrate the festival.
Usually it is not the case, since for most part if we celebrate two festivals concurrently before the third one happens a person would have passed on to a different realm. So, roughly and optionally we would celebrate the following festivals.
- Diwali is about lights, firecrackers, new clothes, and oily snacks
- Pongal is just about food, and Kannu ritual for siblings
- Occasionally Krishna Jayanthi food again oily too
- Maybe sometime, Gollu showcasing our art-based talents
- Of course, all ritualistic ceremonies were strictly done deal
Other than the above list of festival celebrations, I have no recollection of any other festivals that we celebrated with austerity. So, it is not surprising that mortality of humankind, the top tier of Earthly beings, would be a constant reminder for me.
Timelessness and Infinity
There was once a moment under the starlit night brightened by the new moon. I felt the cold ocean breeze brush past me making me realise something important about life. Even the innumerable stars which we assume as permanent go up in fumes once it burnt itself up.
In this way, the connection with human mortality had become a constant reminder in my family. We are born into the family because of our soul’s personal journey of evolution.
Even though life is transitory, the desire for immortality keeps occurring as a subject of debate in the thinking minds of the human. Especially, in poetry I would often find poets’ version of mortality and the assumed immortality of certain things.
Fourth Group Dilemma
The choice of fourth group in High school was the group that the school was willing to offer. My father’s instructions to me were clear which was “do not rock the boat” and to “accept the choice as a blessing.” My father had a stoic mindset and his instruction ‘to not create any problem or dispute’ was a drilled in advice.
So, by the time, I came of age, the passive aggression in me would peak and manifest as rebellion towards rituals. Yet, I was cowardly enough not to rock the boat of life. But then, I would place my discomfort and queries on such practices in my poems.
Yet, I enjoyed the fourth group of Commerce, Accountancy, Economics with Advanced English would bring out the best in me. Though I wanted to have Maths, but I didn’t miss it so much either.
It was also during this period that I started to self-teach skills. I was bold enough to figure by myself the inner space of my mind. I would always question what the teacher taught and spend time debating in the cloak of nighttime walks in the terrace.
High School Poems and I
More than writing the poems, I enjoyed reading poetic works of poets from various parts of the world. I remember reading a collection of poems written by a blood cancer child who was according to me way younger than me. The book was published posthumously by her parents.
When I had read the poems, I felt my heart move in weird circles. I would then ask the stars questions as to why there are sufferance and galore in planet earth? It would crop up often! What was the purpose behind our birth and death? What is our goal in this transitory world? Such questions would appear in my mind.
I only had the silent starlit night sky while on the ground where electrical lights are in a competition with the stars. I did not find answers in the stars but in the verses of John Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale.
A Poem for Life
There were two poets whose influence in my writing life have been immense. John Keats and Emily Dickinson were the two poets whose work awaken in me a desire almost a destiny to study and to learn English as my major in college.
The day when I had the thoughts that I wished to study English Literature happened as a predestined occurrence and I have physical memory of that day in my high school calendar.
I envisioned Keats as seated under a tree and writing and striking words as the poem took form under the afternoon sun. It was later that I had read about Charles Armitage, a friend of Keats who mentioned where the poem was written.
Even today, I get goosebumps when I think of that vision of poem being written. When it was confirmed later in my life, I was surprised by the entire event.
Conscious Growing and Intellectual Expansion
I found that my synchronicity happened in the form of poems or books that I read. If I had a genuine question and if I placed it in the universal consciousness, the answer comes in the form of poems or published works.
I also knew that some books would come into my life for a reason. Nothing in this world happens without some hidden reasons. To embrace good, bad, and worst takes some personal gumptions.
The expanding consciousness of the human part in me raises me from just being the top tier survivor of the animal kingdom. There is a transformation of inner elements that makes me who I am.
Every living organism has a soul or spirit which gets manifested in the choices we are given by the Divine. The need to find the inherent quality that wishes to shine as a bright star becomes a life goal for all.
Poetry and Books Main Influences
I think of the various books that was given to me, or I picked it randomly in the library, or from my paternal uncle’s collection influenced my thought processes and answered those inquisitive questions of mine.
Often, a book is a messenger from different dimensions who clear the fog of confusion and provide clarity of thought. Even today, as I am reading my booklist, I am made aware that my highest purpose of life is to evolve consciously.
It is important to find out what are the main and minor lessons of my life. My inherent skills needed for making it perfect and enable my personal evolution possible. The quest of this life is to find the factors of becoming a better version of myself! In this I am a continuum of Infinite Formless Being which is my highest understanding as of now!
Itinerant Storyteller 