Holi Hai !!!

" बुरा ना मानो होली है !!" (Don’t feel bad it is holi)

Everyone who has grown up in India (or have watched hindi movies) must have heard this line. Truly Holi is the day when there is no reason to feel bad. Unlike Diwali the festival of lights celebrated as the victory of good over evil in the worldly sense. Holi is the time to celebrate the victory over ones own senses and enjoy. Cherish the blessings and the colorful surroundings. Demolish inner demons like greed, ego, anger, false pride.  Smear the friends and everyone in bright colors signifying the blessing that life is. Get yourself smeared in the colors and become a person who is clean, away from any anger and ego. With rainbow painted faces when one smiles and shows the white teeth, they appear silly and beautiful and pure.

In my schooling, college and early job years in India, I had always waited for Holi with great anticipation. My favorite festival as I had always said and believed. However, in last almost 2 decades living in the US, especially in the east coast with a cold march when the festival is and the job responsibilities have made the celebration almost non-existent. Watching photos and videos of family and friends in India from their Holi celebrations is the only solace. And then is taking a small amount of color usually after office on Holi and putting little dots on the beautiful faces of my wife and kids.

This year is different, Today was holi and I was not home, travelling for work. A few thousand miles away. This morning When I woke up in the hotel, it was very different from waking up on Holi in the past years. No one said Happy holi and no one heard me say Happy Holi.  Don’t feel bad it is Holi (बुरा ना मानो होली है !!) but I felt very bad because it was not any other day but Holi, and no one around. Tomorrow evening when I plan to reach home, holi will be over and I will have missed it. So how could I not feel bad?

With these thoughts I started my day and went for what I had planned at work. Still not able to shake it all off.

Then the holi miracle happened, My evening meeting got canceled, the key contact I was going to meet had developed an infection, early in the morning which worsened over the day and by noon he had to cancel the meeting. So I was freed up. And then I checked, the airline had a seat available in the evening flight that can take me home late at night. Late at night but today. So I will be home and will do our ritual of color in the evening (Okay! late night; but why be picky 😊) 

After all it is Holi and Bura na Mano Holi hai!!!

HAPPY HOLI ALL!!!!

PS: I reached home almost 10 minutes before midnight, and kids were asleep, so had a happy holi good-night kiss instead of colors. The picture above is from a year ago. No matter what; it was a very Happy and blessed Holi!

Circle of Time

Are you from a different planet? I asked; though he appeared very familiar, yet very different. He laughed, “no I am not, I am from earth; though not the earth you claim to know.”

Are you telling me that you are from some hidden civilization or are you suggesting that you are time traveler from past or future? I teased.

Past is future! he said more as a matter of fact statement than a philosophical one.

Like forward is backward? I teased again.

Forward and backward, Front and back, ahead and behind are only for linear single dimension entities. Backward is forward and ahead is behind in a circle. That is what time is, a circle, is it not? And so Past is Future. He stated, as if trying to tell something as basic as alphabets to a toddler.

I looked at his face with disbelief, some fear, some surprise and a million other emotions. I knew that face.

Time is a circle, he repeated, you know that. He looked me in the eye. You know that time is a circle, the cycle of time as you have heard and read. All philosophers from your part of that circle have always referred to time as a wheel, or a circle or a stone flour mill. You have been contemplating it for so many months, years and still you don’t believe me?

I knew I believed him. I knew what he was saying was a thought that had always tormented and teased me. I knew I never had courage to say is out loud for the fear of retribution or the fear of being mocked. But when I hear the stories from the past, many of those sound too futuristic to me. When I read about the pyramids, the great wall, the angel visitations in Bible, the theory of Yugas in Vedas, the Brahamastras in Hindu scriptures (and the forbidden use of those) and a lot more, I always feel that what happened in the past is in fact waiting to happen in the future. The time is a circle. The time is cyclic and not linear as we have believed for so many years.

I looked at his face again trying to know why he looked so familiar. And then a faint smile on his lips gave it away. He was me. He was me from a different point on the circle. You don’t always have to go follow the circle, he said, you can cut through and take the shorter path to go across. Time; as you know is a dimension like some others you travel through. You know that! don’t give me the look that you don’t know it. He said with the authority of a concerned teacher.

Don’t tell me that you didn’t believe in the stories of the time travelers and those who moved across the ages and the cosmos like someone roaming in their back yard.

As a matter of fact, you don’t have to tell me anything, I know how tormented you are with knowing what you think you can not prove. So, I am here, trying to tell you that you are right. You know and you don’t have to know any different. Don’t force the linear time world view on yourself. Prove it to others or not but believe in it yourself. One day if not you, someone will prove it. Prove it for some time, for people to take it for granted, like they take solar system for granted now, instead of the pre-Galilean flat earth scenario. And then they will forget as they have done many times over. But they will forget, only to be reminded again. The snippets of texts and monuments and stories, philosophical nuggets left as crumbs on the path, just for you and those who are like you to pick and think and decide and speak. Someone will see those nuggets to be worth exploring and then the cycle will be repeated.

Knowing and ignorance, just like time are universally cyclic too.

We both smiled. I knew we were one, I knew I could have asked him for the shorter path to move from one side of the circle to other. And I was sure he would have not only told but also held my hand to take me along to that other side of the circle, only to return back to where I was. So being where I was appeared equally fine. 


I would like to see you on the other side but then I have to find my own path to be there. Knowing that if there can be a short part, there will be a million. I am sure I will find them one day. If not now may be sometime in the past or future. The good part of the circle is that it has no start and no end. So, time being the circle is nothing but hope (as a circle has no end)

Past and future, knowing and ignorance, start and end all are the same. And You and I are same as well. See you on the way one day. He winked and turned back. I am sure I will see him some day again. 

I remember seeing him in the past too or was that in the future that awaits?