25 random things about me

Tagged by ammani (jikku.blogspot.com), here are 25 random things about me:

1. I love yellow (van Gogh’s sunflower’s yellow), blue, and wildflowers.
2. I met Paulo Coelho in Dubai (of all places) and I gifted his autographed copy of The Manual of the Warrior of Light to Lincy Aquin.
3. I am bad at keeping in touch with people once I leave their city.
4. There is nothing I love more than meditating in Virupaksha cave.
5. I have never taken a vacation after I finished school.
6. Normally, I do not miss people. Only a few. But I miss them bad.
7. I read lesser now than I used to.
8. I hate browsing the Net and surfing channels on TV.
9. I cannot listen to music and work at the same time; not at all a multi-tasker.
10. I have a bad memory; especially of things I may have said.
11. My two best friends, incidentally, are also Warriers!
12. I hate sweets and do not crave for ice creams or chocolates.
13. I have no burning desire. No fire in my belly.
14. I love being than doing.
15. I have fallen in love with a girl/ woman in every city I have lived in, except for Dubai!
16. If given a choice, I will be a school teacher in a remote village somewhere.
17. Macchu Picchu is one place I want to visit before I die.
18. I love motorcycling and I love RE Bullet (Machismo).
19. In school, my favorite subject used to be History. Even now, it is.
20. Ramana is my only guru. Rest all are his messengers.
21. I love to keep my house neat and tidy all the time.
22. I love looking at paintings.
23. My better half is actually much better than I am. J
24. The only place I want to live and the only place I want to die: Thiruvannamalai. Hope at least one of the two come true!
25. I miss only one person in my life.

Somebody up there…

Somebody up there is certainly looking after me. For whatever I had ever wished for, I have got. Second chances at everything I had lost in life. Love, education, Pune. Baner. Memories.

Pune has some connection with me, I guess. This city keeps inviting me. This is my third time in Pune… Life here, as always, has been very eventful.

The only place I certainly miss is Thiruvannamalai. The holy hill, the Virupaksha cave, Skandashramam, and Ramanashramam at the foot of the hill.

I miss Prasad, Raji, Devraj, Tripathiji, and all the other seekers who you end up meeting in a sacred place like that. I forgot to visit the Kannapa Nayanar temple and also to go for giripradakshina on the inner path. Next time for sure… whenever the calling comes. Sandeep, you are certainly more blessed than I am. Make the most of it, like Tripathiji says.

Right now, life is back to dealing with the basics of a worldly life. Bills, loans, rents, provisions, et al.

He had grace

Somewhere, lost in time, is truth. Sometime, lost in time, is a soul.

Between six-o-clock in the evening of January 19 and the morning of January 20, 2009, Ananthakrishnan passed away. Brutally murdered.

As far as I knew him, he was just like us. Human; flawed, bright, cunning, mean, spiritual, drunkard, liar, and more. He was like a guru to me… Then, there were things about him that I never knew about. I, now, will never know about: his past, his nakshatra, his gotram, his relatives, etc. He said, his native place was Srirangam at Thiruchirapalli.

What amazes me more than his own prediction of his death (sometime in 2005, I think, he had first predicted his own death in the year 2009) is the fact that he had the grace to die in Thiruvannamalai, near the foothill of Lord Arunachala. I am sure, if all that the Tripura Rahasya says is true, then, he would have attained awareness.

If we had not gone to Thiruvannalamalai to see his dead body, we would not have been graced by Lord Arunachala… Shiva works in mysterious ways: we met and made awesome friends in Gerry & Gabs and Prasad & Devaraj. Each of them with a story of their own… each of them very colorful and spiritual in their own way. We also met Dwaraknath Reddy, a celebrated spiritual author, and had coffee with him in the morning.

I love Prasad singing and playing the flute… and Devaraj telling us his stories. What a storyteller he is! Gabs’ silence and Gerry conspiracy theories made us think and ponder and laugh… Prasad, staying over at your humble home was a very humbling experience. This was the first time, when we both just did not want to leave Thiruvannamalai.

Then, listening to Gerry and Swamiji, Prasad’s neighbour, debate and discuss for more than three hours was awesome.

Shiva took away one soul and made us meet four instead. That too, in Thiruvannamalai… AK had once said, if you meet and bond with strangers in Thiruvannamalai, you are related to them somewhere, sometime in a previous birth.

I believe in it: Prasad, Devaraj, Gerry, and Gabs. All you wandering souls, we are all related… The way we met and bonded… Man, like Gerry says: “There are no coincidences. We are all same, same but different!”

I know, I shall miss talking to AK about various things under the sun and over the moon in my sad, broken Tamil… My questions, his answers… but I sit back and wonder how Shiva almost always had an interpreter for us!