Spacing Out

The air is cool and the skies are dark. The monsoon winds have blown their bounty over the Arabian sea, through Kerala and now all the way inland into Bangalore. After weeks of activity and strain, some of which still continues, I am finally back to being able to run at least three or more times a week. I finish my 7th lap in just about 28.5 minutes, still a minute over my best time when I was relatively freer in mind and fitter in body.

It's amazing how quickly I am able to gain weight. Four weeks of high stress and no exercise and suddenly its already difficult to complete the 4.2 KM run.

I lie down on the narrow parapet wall that borders the ground. I look up, at the gray sky, and the branches of a gulmohar tree are in the field of sight. They sway gently against the magnificent gray infinity of space that I lie under.


Lying on your back and looking at the sky is very similar to sitting before an ocean. You just don't get it.... no matter how long you stare.... So much space ... so much water ... where does the infinity end?

During my run, as always my mind is abuzz processing the rather copious amounts of reality on my plate. But now as I lay back, balanced on a narrow wall, and as I contemplated the wind blowing the gulmohar branch against the gray background, I am liberated from all that surrounds and imprisons me, if only for a few minutes in silent lucidity.

Words from a famous poem I once read back in school come to mind

"What if this life is full of care
We have no time to stand and stare"

JK Rowlings speech at Harvard


A must read ...

http://harvardmagazine.com/go/jkrowling.html

Bought this in the Bangalore Airport on my way to the US in early April. Finished it pretty soon. Good read. If you ascribe to reincarnation, etc, this book vinidcates that stand, with the expected quantity of the Western scientific approach thrown in, including a good number of control arguments.

The book dovetails to Hindu/Buddhist views on life in summary, but steers clear of the larger questions of creation and its need.

All in all, a good read.

Pictures of Space


The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation - source Top 10 Hubble pictures

And here's one of Van Gogh's best known paintings ... created when he was being treated for insanity in an asylum ... coincidence perhaps or just prescience.