The Dimensions of Dreams

Eleanor Roosevelt was a very influential women of the 20th century America, FDR's constant friend, political advisor, and above all a reformist to the core. An UN Diplomat , Humanitarian and US First Lady , once at a state dinner she was asked to speak and made a statement “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.......The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams". I have always believed in this edifice in life and the poster next to my computer table where an airplane is taking off with those beautiful words written underneath have been a perennial source of inspiration and joy. Something that has given me the strength to face the darkest hours of life, moments when I have felt low or felt like escaping from the shackles of the mundane life into the freedom of wilderness. It has inspired me to dream and in a sense some of these dreams had so strong a conviction in them that over a period of time, I started believing in them in a way as if they are tomorrow's reality.....and have visualised many a tomorrow through the kaleidoscope of these dreams......Not long ago a friend of mine questioned If i believed in dreams adding a word of caution as always , not to dismiss them with " I am too busy for such flimsy thing" attitude.......most certainly I won't do as my friend apprehended....and the reply is in the form of this post which shall not only sketch out my opinion but reflect upon that dimension of life that has been my best friend in worst moments.....conspicuously these dreams have sprouted within and have grown into animated creatures with limbs and legs and have been in a state, much like the colloid particles in Brownian motion.....

In fact, a dream is not an isolated thing , thought or an idea that germinates in the mind of a man during his sleep hours and withers out before the first light of the dawn.....dreams are pieces of our hopes, aspirations, conscious and sub-conscious desires. And a in a way much like any other object with a form, dreams too have dimension..... it reminds me of reading Gregori Antonovich Gamov...popularly known as George Gamow.....an american( of Russian descent) theoretical physicist and cosmologist...who had suggested the idea of Multi-Dimensions where with his not-so-sophisticated setup of the 1950s suggested the moving shadow as the Fourth Dimension .....from where comes the word 4D........Much like Gamow's imagination, dream is a multidimensional phenomenon....arising from our Desires.......arousing in us fundamental Doubts, giving rise to double edged Dilemmas and often ends up in Determination or Desperation and the path we choose(between determination and desperation) decides the fate of our Dreams.....some would again like to argue here, that fate is nothing but our Destiny......so in a way dreams are connected to a web of Ds....each one of them functional as pivotal axis.....upon which depends the way our life's revolve......sounds Greek at this stage?....well this was a metaphorical comparison where I have tried to draw a chord joining science and philosophy.....in a way I think is very healthy. The symbiosis of science with philosophy has always kept me excited because if scientific reasoning is applied to comprehend philosophy it becomes much easier.....and rational....

Apart from this metaphorical bridge.....in my personal life I stand straight with the conviction that dreams can conquer realities if we strive with great determination to achieve them. And it is that courage to dream big that puts us ahead of others in the next moment.....but the story never ends in simply conceiving the dream, otherwise the idiomatic use of day-dreamer would have long ago been in its grave......Honest effort is what the courage to dream calls for...not necessarily all my dreams will come true, neither will all of them go in vain....But I must be honest enough in chasing or pursuing them to the point I can, and then perhaps rest my case in the hands of that unseen unified controlling equation that governs the energy of the universe.....till then i must try.....i must strive.....i must believe.....that dreams will and God willing they truly will come true someday.....struck amidst the intellectual populace much of whom are up in arms fighting against each other vowing for the top spot on the lonely hill top by the year end......it is the beauty of my beautiful dreams that keep me ticking...that makes me believe that this battle of nerves is not the end result of our intentions....not the end result of our dreams.....it is but, only the beginning and in a mortal world where intentions alone do not matter the magnum.....a top spot would not necessarily mean mission accomplished....but for those who dream with such ferocity...I appreciate them....for in their perspective they have the intent and the passion to chase it......and I truly entertain a great admiration for such people deep down in my heart.....but as I said earlier.....determination and desperation direct our efforts in the same direction but only in a differentiable amplitude and in a different phase....(phase as in a trigonometric function being differentiated over a limit , showing phase difference to be in-sync or out-of-phase....preferably a Sin function where Sin x tends from infinity to zero...).... I dream of a tomorrow....in a lonely hill station listening to the chirrup at the crack of dawn.....i dream of a small English cottage where i have a cute study room , all to myself.....I dream of a tomorrow...when I can go for a trip to one of those quiet hamlets in the swiss alps .....I dream of a tomorrow....when i am freed from the shackles of these pseudo-intellectual gibberish......and for them I do have a design and the way is well charted out.... so in a nutshell......I have a beautiful dream and I cherish and nurture it delicately so that it blooms tomorrow to be the prettiest flower in life's garden.........till then keep dreaming and keep believing in them....wish that they come true and strive for them.....and we Deserve to get what we Desire in our Dreams if only we believe in them....the future belongs to those isolated species of people who are dreamers......

gud nite and sweet dreams

Muslim Chacha

The title might sound a politically correct one chosen for secular sermoning, but its nothing of the sort. Muslim Chacha, himself is a character who defies the traditional pen picture of a so called holy muslim....he has hardly worn a salwar (the traditional dress worn by muslim males in the middle east) nor has he stuck to the religious rigidity of not touching alcohol(if it literally meant so, and a touch is a touch no matter whether its your finger or your lips)...in fact his life has revolved around the pints and quarts for more than seven decades.....and he continues to mind his Ps and Qs in his own style, minimal, subtle, orderly and very sophisticated. An orderlies etiquette that's truly reminiscent of the days of the British Raj in the country.

The first time I met him, was sometime in the summer of 1989, at the Old Cachar Club ( I use the word Old because the Cachar Club back then use to be in the Old building that has been demolished to make way for the new elegant building that stands tall over Club Road, today), though I fail to recollect the minute details of our first meeting, I still very much remember that even on that day he looked as old as he looks today. A face concocted by in-numerous creases crisscrossing it all over,an arched back that formed the half of a shady bower, nimble fingers that bore signs of decay over years of use and reuse and his graceful movements , as he covered long streches over the lawn where the party way going on, there was an unusual silence and grace in his movements and he is still an embodiment of these qualities to the day.

It was the other evening last week when we had gone to the club for dinner, when maa called upon him as Mushlim(with an extra H as in her bengali vocab), one of my uncles who had come from Delhi looked a bit surprised....but maa was quick to dispel his doubts when she told him that this was his name and there was nothing unusual about it. Maa went to add on a few words about him as she always does, whenever she speaks of Muslim Chacha....and of his 75 years of service at the Cachar Club...well that's right .....its 7 and 5...seventy five.....born in a village near Silchar sometime in the first quarter of the last century, Muslim Islam as he was named by his parents, came to work in the club in 1934 as a 14 year old boy, who would attend to the english gentleman, mostly tea planters and their ladies, and was the pick of the orderlies for his etiquette and efficiency. Even today he speaks of those days with as much clarity as if it were only yesterday. After the last days of the Raj, the Cachar Club was annexed by the Govt of Assam, like every other company solely held by the Englishmen, and was later owned by the influential Dev family of Silchar.

Muslim Chacha continued as he was retained along with few other employees of the Cachar Club Co. when the Dev's took over th reins of the Club after Independence. But as the years rolled by most of his colleagues retired or faded into the obscurity of old age or death. But Muslim Chacha went on, serving the club and professing his never ending loyalty.

Maa says that she had, long years ago as a child (when she went to the club with my grandfather) saw Mushlim as a young man, in his thirties or forties. But that was long ago. Muslim Islam has always been the best of the best when it came to his job, a skilled ace who excelled extraordinarily in the ordinary things he did. Muslim Chacha, once said and was later confirmed by sources that during the early 1950s when Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru had come to Silchar accompanied by his young daughter Indira, for a political rally he stayed at the Cachar Club for a couple of days and he was so pleased with Muslim that he insisted on taking the boy with him for his two day trip to Aizawl, so that Muslim could attend to Panditji.... This was the only time this man(Muslim Islam) had the experience of a chopper ride, and accompanied Pandit Nehru as his attendant to Aizawl.(Folk lore says that It was his perfection in the art of Mixology, and that it was a perfect peg the first evening, that was his boarding pass for the Aizawl trip). But even today whenever there's a big occasion in the club, its Muslim Chacha Behind the BARs.... And the skills are still sharp....(I would expect all of you to understand; given the fact that I have had a first hand experience of his art)....It was from Muslim Chacha I had first learnt how to hold a soft drink glass wrapped with a tissue paper , or the correct way of sipping through a drink, using a stirrer to mix a *ocktail.....and many such etiquettes, that one perfects at a finishing school today ......The art of handling dinner forks , using the napkin, how to place the spoon gesturing that one wants a second serve(I always wanted a second serve at the club, in fact more than a second serve), and many such fine etiquettes that added finesse and completeness to my being. As a child, I was one of the naughtiest who went to the club with his parents , but he would take moments off his duty to politely change my fork grip or take out the fork from the left hand and place it in my right or hold the soft drink glass for me with 3 fingers by the rim and the little finger beneath.....in a way Muslim Chacha has been a teacher for a lifetime.

A man who barely had an incomplete and informal primary education taught you the finest of English etiquettes, in a way that was very gentle as well caring. The man truly deserves a mention , he is worthy of. Today as the club is being rebuilt, the new building has a Sepia photograph of Muslim Chacha reclining on one of the pillars of the old club, the photos were clicked by Shrayya Dubey .....a fifth generation heir of the deb family...SM Deb's granddaughter, and has been placed in the entrance lobby. Rightly so, because today he is the oldest surviving yet functional unit of the Cachar Club, the old building too has gone down under the hammer but this defiant man fails to fade into obscurity. It reminds me of a remark, which was once said of famous music composer Friedrich Chopin, that Chopin is more Polish than Poland.....to portray the fact that he was the epitome of everything Polish, so can be said about Muslim Chacha.......the man who stand tall with his arched spine, a souvenir specimen of yesteryears. Hope that he continues in his same simple minimalistic style as always, for his sheer presence makes one Feel at Home in the club, for people who have gone there for too long. Muslim Chacha truly stand apart in a league of his own, a man who truly smells of the essence and spirit of the club........Hat Off Muslim Chacha

Minors fail to spread Joy

Late last night i had been playing the synthesizer for quite sometime when it occured to me that the minors do not spread joy like the majors do.............though i like playing a few songs with a lot of minor chords in them ...one being "Do lafzoon ki toh ...yehhai kahani..." picturised in a Venetian canal......it starts with a Cmin then moves on to a D# then an occasional C or Csus4 moving on to its basic chords......these songs are emotional, sometimes they are overflowing with sentiments.....some strike a chord in my heart but the ebullience evaporates soon after. Many of these songs are apt for certain situations in life, when the lyrics mean all the more relevant. But a careful reflection reveals that those are moments of sorrow or grief.... of loneliness and silent sobs and unlike the songs that flow from one major chord to another they fail to lighten up the spirit.....perhaps there lies the essence of music that speaks the language of our heart.......music shall live on in my heart for years to come...........