My latest avatar on the web - once again under a pseudonymous identity. Wonder why all the names that I want to be called have an alternate arrangement of consonants and vowels. What else is common to all my identities? They are all names of Asuras. Three months of staying from all that I'm comfortable with hasn't changed me much, I see.
Be prepared not see the shores for months, they say, if you want to discover new islands, and I seem to have discovered a new island - myself. Haven't really kept in touch with many people, though I've become a bit more regular when it comes to calling home and catching up with some of my friends in Delhi. Haven't spoken to Navin, Tina Sharma and Zakka in a long time. Planning to do that sometime soon.
I had origianlly decided not to blog at all about my stay in the UK - wonder what Mr. Gandhi would say (The Story of My Experiments with Truth) - but my new tea cup wouldn't allow me that indulgence.
In 1996, while having tea at the PTI canteen on New Delhi's Sansad Marg, I advised a friend that one should treat life like a cup of tea - "enjoy drinking it, but don't get attached to the tea cup. Be sure which is tea and which is the cup. Leave it on the table as soon as you finish drinking it and walk off."
Almost ten years later, some time last week, when the first ever tea cup I bought for myself got stuck in my cupboard drawer, I was on the verge of tears. It looked like there was no way it will come unstuck unless I broke it, and I couldn't bear the thought of breaking it. What has changed in ten years? Tathagata, as the Buddha used to call himself, means 'THUS GONE ONE'.
