there was a bird in the house yesterday

I was sitting in the basement pretending to work on the comp while Jimmy Page was hollering away in the foreground...I heard this flutter of wings and knew there was a bird in the house. poor guy. was this amazingly 'cute' (can not for my life think of any other adjective which could rightly describe it) little owl, around 7-8 inches high. he had found himself inside the house and instinctively knew he was imprisoned in a way. kept trying to fly away through this glass pane in the loft of our house and ended up banging and hurting himself. the guy was absolutely terrified.

the challenge was to slowly guide him out of the house...and realized how difficult it is to handle a bird that was so afraid, a bird that can see lesser when there is bright light, a bird that was considered scary but was just so beautiful at close quarters that after I overcame the initial nervousness just did not want to let him go...and moreover when it is dark he is comfortable you are not! I tried switching off all the lights, swithcing them on, throwing things in the loft so I could coax him out of that place. he was constantly banging against the glass paned window trying to fly out through the glass. took a good half hour while he travelled all over the house with me opening every window, switching on every light so it was darker outside and he would know thats where he wanted to go...finally it was sheer chance that he found himself flying out of the front door.

Actually I haven't felt this emotional pang for anything non-human until now. Shaddy (the dog that has adopted us among 2 other families that he has) was possibly the one that came closest; but this owl, the fear in his eyes, the absolute helplessness, coming from a bird that is usually associated with horror and eerieness. he was just so lovely. You should see the intricate patterns on his wings and the big eyes staring back at you while turning round the 270 degrees that he could move his neck around through and desperately trying to find an escape. I wanted to gently lift him, hug and him and tell him I didn't mean any harm! and that I would do anything to help him...

and NO I did not take any pictures...did not even occur to me and even if it did I wouldn't have wanted to petrify him further with a flashcamera!

freedom

funny really. I wonder if we tend to make too big a deal about freedom. I have had a holiday today, noone stopping me from doing exactly what I wanted to do, doing all those things we presumably don't have time to do otherwise...and then there is today...spent more than half the day 'catching up on email', doing some 'work', justified my claim to dedication by sending a few 'official' mails at 7pm on a saturday! what did I do with the temporary freedom I had, nought! took me more than 16 hrs to get to this computer and the keyboard and doing what presumably has been my passion in life...writing!! or does it really take a long time for some mere mortals like me to break out of the internal shackles that bind us to this compulsion for 'productive work'. Anand would promptly quote Camus and say you are among "those silent men who, throughout the world, endure the life that has been made for them" or better still " The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." . Sreekanth would probably do the same. PK and Panya (my alter egos in more senses than one) would call it intellectual masturbation. Ekta is convinced she will go mad if she doesn't work for a day. My father never worried about these things...never had the time to. Nishwath just silently deals with this, she considers this empty intellectualization. little wonder that she doesn't know about this blog...yet :) I think some of us are just condemned to a life of boredom. reminds me of someone (don't remember who) who said, human nature is determined by his/her social interactions. In itself it is nought.

nought is what I experienced today! yet again...

i don't really know...

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/agnosticism

It came as a bit of relief for me, when I first encountered the term agnosticism, during one of those chance argument sessions which is common in the so-called formative years of our lives (as if we ever take a complete form). I first analysed this in the context of theism vs atheism...and then conveniently extrapolated this to other realms of life: capitalism vs socialism, existentialism vs shoonya-vada, reservation vs anti-reservation or bhindi masala vs baingan bharta.

And relief enhanced to happiness when I realized that this need not necessarily stop me from taking positions and even stances in life. So through my teenage in those seemingly interminable canteen conversations, I could quite happily vacillate between varying versions of idealism. From moderate rightism to a frustrated leftism, from compulsive spirituality to restrained rationality. I traversed the entire spectra of political, social and personal ideals. This helped me move from an acceptance of shy retirement to bumbling intellectual eloquence. At the end of it all it could be just a question of taking a position and engaging with life. The engagement being the priority rather than the stance.

I don't really know...