Wednesday 27 November 2019

The Beckett Podcast

So I started recording a Podcast with Beckett the past week.

This episode is a delicious conversation talking about everything from firetrucks to friends - both human and imaginary.








Wednesday 18 September 2019

Lost in Translation - Kal ki hi baat hai

Seems like Yesterday

I found there in my arms 
I found you

Feelings that I'd never known
Who brought them to my world
It was you

Your smiles had 
Wrapped in them
Gifts for me 
And made me sigh 

The Silence
On those lips
Untold tales
In those eyes

Who brought the spring with her 
It was you

I found there in my arms 
I found you

Seems like Yesterday

Maybe I've done 
Some things so right
That I was blessed this way

I didn't deserve
To be with you
Still, you chose to stay

Everything else 
Feels so fake
Whenever 
I look at you

The way that
No night can 
Replace the day's
Sky so blue

How did you bring such love
With you

I found there in my arms 
I found you

Seems like Yesterday

- OST Chhichhore   

Saturday 7 September 2019

Letters to Beckett - 2

Dear Beckett,

The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.

Love is a many splendid thing.

All you need is love.

Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs, what's wrong with that, I'd like to know.

While I've mentioned in the last letter that Freedom is the highest of all ideals, Love is right up there next to it.

All we are made of is Love and Stories.

I wish that you find someone to love the way your mother loves you. 

It is an unconditional love. A love of absolute captivation, and consequently, a love of complete surrender.

I wish that you find someone to love the way I love you.

It is a love of creation. A love of forging a life, and consequently, a love of being shaped myself.

I wish that you find the kind of love your mother feels when she is swaying to the beat of the Garba.

I wish you find the kind of love that I feel when I'm writing or playing music in full flow.

I wish that these things and that that someone loves you back with the same ferocity and fealty.

I also wish that you learn to love your heartbreaks, struggles, and battle-scars. That is a love of gratitude and of hope.

I also want you to know, that while your love for me ranges between 6 and 700,000,000, I love you 3000. More than anything in the world.

Because all we are made of is Love and Stories.

Friday 12 July 2019

Letters to Beckett - 1

Dear Beckett,

One of my shortcomings (or superpowers) as a father is that I treat you like an adult. 

The outcome of this is a combination of weird,  hilarious, poignant, and at times, sad series of events.

I once got annoyed with you and called you out for crying too much when you were 3 days old.

On your part, you've always been more mature than your weeks, months, and years.

Still, I've always expected more from you. 

It comes for my misplaced sense of responsibility; that it is my job to help you become the best version possible of yourself.

This is misplaced because the best version of yourself is you and not the image I have in my head.

Nonetheless, I'll always expect more from you. 

I'll always want you to punch 2 levels above your weight class in whatever you do. 

Treating you as an adult also means that I trust you to make the right choices for yourself.

This too has resulted in hilarious and often annoying outcomes.

Like you get to call me Samyak, Gattu, and almost every random moniker you come up with whenever you want.

Or that our apartment is currently an effing rainbow colored orgy.

This too comes from one of my misplaced notions that adults ought to know what they are doing.

When I clearly know firsthand that there is no such thing as adulting. 

We just keep making things up as we go along.

You also get a complete view of our lives, all the good, bad, and ugly-ness.

And you handle all of it brilliantly. 

Like a champ, always punching two levels above her weight class.

I steadfastly try to pass my love of reading books and music to you.

But you, with mind-boggling tenacity, choose to exercise your right to not accept it.

So I feel immensely happy about one thing as your father. 

That you've embraced without any prodding the highest of all human ideals - Freedom. 

May you always be free - in thoughts and in actions.

You'll understand this completely when you read Atlas Shrugged at 17. 

Or when you get married.

I'll now end this letter before your mother finds out what I've been up to.

     

Wednesday 19 June 2019

Beckett @ 4

Beckett turned 4 yesterday. Taught me something important, like she always does.

We started by turning everything into a rainbow-colored extravaganza. 

Rainbow Hoodie - Check. Rainbow Top - Check. Rainbow Socks - Check.


Rainbow Painting - Check. Rainbow Cake - Check.


So now I'm thinking this one is going to grow up to be a fashionista. 

The whole day passes and then we get home from school. 

Now she wants to build something. 

So we build (in her own words) 'The Outside Machine'. 


And since it is 'The Outside Machine' (The cardboard, string, paper thingy in her hand), we had to take it outside to the Embarcadero. 

The White thing (Yogurt container) is the 'Cyran Moon'. It is supposed to be used to see, run, and play in the darkness. 
The Red thing (Cardboard box) is the 'Cyran Ambulance'. 

It is supposed to keep everything inside it safe. 

It houses The Thread (thread) and The Kite (wrapping paper). 

Tomorrow it'll house something else. 

The correct way to use 'The Outside Machine' is as shown in the picture above.


In this picture, she is demonstrating how Not to use 'The Outside Machine'. 

Now I'm thinking she'll grow up to be an Engineer. 

And as I'm typing this, I find myself smiling and realizing (and correcting my cognitive bias) that the Fashionista / Engineer choice is not a MECE (Mutually Exclusive Collectively Exhaustive) one. 

Maybe she'll grow up to become a Fashionista engineer storyteller. 

Happy Birthday. And thank you for the lesson.

Friday 29 March 2019

Dad Reflexes

My Dad reflexes are terrible. My instincts are amazing, but reflexes are terrible.

Needless to say that this post is about Beckett getting hurt.

Last Wednesday she fell head first on a concrete pavement from a height of three and a half feet.

And she bruised her face. And bumped her head.

And I couldn't catch her in time.

All the time I spent watching Dad videos on 9Gag felt like a complete waste.

But, my daughter, true to her name, is both peaceful (Sanskrit) and fearless (Nordic).

After the initial one day, she was back to being Beckett.

Today she asked to go back to the same place at the Embarcadero, and she jumped from the very place that she fell from.

She wanted to see the stars and I was happy to be her pathfinder.

P.S: Missus was very unkind to me throughout this ordeal, squarely placing the blame on me for the fall.


Saturday 2 February 2019

Treasure Hunt

My walks and 1:1 time with Beckett are some of my best times ever.

Today we went on a treasure hunt.


Beckett: 'You've got to look through this!'


Me: 'What? This? This is an empty Toilet paper roll!'


Beckett: 'No! It's a Telescope! Only if you look through it can you find the Treasure!'


And suddenly a line from a book flashed in front of my eyes. 


It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. 


Me: 'Look! What's this? That's a snail!'


Beckett: 'Wow!'


Beckett: 'I found another treasure!' (And she ran towards it).


Me (running after her): 'Wait for me.... Ahh... What's this? It's Dog Poo!'


Beckett: 'That's a treasure too! Because we found it!'


Me: 'Of course!' (This girl is now taking me to philosophy class)


Another line from a poem flashed before my eyes.



Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand That this, too, was a gift.

Over the next hour, we found treasures in the form of earthworms trying to cross a cement path, a kingfisher giving us a magnificent demonstration of its wings beating 50 times a second, some random berries that had fallen from their tree, a trinket that really looked like an object from a treasure, and a bunch of twigs that we carried with us back to our apartment complex. 


Every time we found something new, there was a great sense of wonder, curiosity, and achievement at having unlocked some hitherto unknown bounty of nature. 


For someone who spends his days creating order and structure and chasing targets, going treasure hunting was a wonderful lesson in finding that everything is a treasure if you look at it the right way.     

Monday 7 January 2019

Valar Morghulis

Me: 'What is that on your lip?'

Beckett: 'What?'

Me: 'The Black thing?'

Beckett: 'What?'

Me (removing the small black spec of whatever it was from her lower lip): 'This'

Beckett: (Smiles)

Me: 'What's that? Is it dust? Is it a piece of rye from the Dal? Is it a beauty spot? There are so many things that can be black!'

Beckett: 'That's rye. It's black. Your beard is also black.'

Me (Chuckling): 'Yes, my beard is black but it is starting to get white. And as I grow older it'll keep getting whiter.'

Beckett (Pensive): 'And then you will go to God's house?'

Me (Holy Fuck! I didn't see that coming!): 'Eventually maybe!'

Beckett: 'And Mumma will also go to God's house.'

Me (Shit is getting real now!): 'Maybe!'

Beckett (Upset): 'But I don't want you to go to God's house!'

Beckett: 'I also don't want Mumma to go to God's house!'

Me (At my reassuring best): 'Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere for a long long time!'

Beckett (smiling): 'I love you Pappa!'

Me (smiling back): 'I love you too.'      



P.S: The maybes are only because I genuninely believe that we could be the first generation of humans to avoid the inconvenience of dying altogether.