What can you not live without ?

Dear TL,

Once again you scored hat trick!!! with ur third Blog. Wow what a introspection. It was fun cruising with your list of things, you cluttered with, but you can live without it:rotfl

Aptly said, We cannot live without frequent dose of love and continous dose of fresh air. Hope the Motor vehicle Department of Bangalore read this post, so that they will do something to start allowing flow of Fresh Air!!!!!!!!!!

 

dear TL,

that was a rocking post from you,as usual :thumbsup
lakshmi, today is sunday and I am too lazy to introspect even .any way that is what I do very diligently every other day of the week, so let me give it a break..
At such a young age you are smart to realize the futility of hoarding and collecting memorabilia ..like always I have been slow in realizing that ...first collecting them and then the dusting and cleaning :bonk
very rarely i log on on sundays as hubby too was busy with his laptop i came in here and had a good laugh..Now he informs me that there is a "Friends " marathon on TV so there I go to plonk myself in front of the idiot box . so I guess one thing I cannot live without is laughter?.

 

Dear Lakshmi

Yesterday I was on line when you were creating this thread and thought of giving the first fb as I love to give the first fb though my fbs are not so good. But my husband had gone out, when he starts talking he forgets the time, so I was spending some time here and then and looking out whether he is coming. When I came back to give fb he came that time only

So now you must have understood that I cant live without my dh, without children, grandchildren and last but not the least without computer and without IL.

Now I hope I have written correctly because I am confused with , with and without.

sorry hope I have not confused you

love
viji

 

Incredible,funny list that makes you think of things that you have or not!! Really we can live with nothing. My DS in 1st grade is going through the phase of wants and needs - as taught in school. Reinforces my faith in the system, someting must be right. For every sentence I speak, he counters with "is it a need or a want"! Ofocurse he has to deal with the same thing when he wants something.

My wants list defintely includes sunshine and a smile - I will take those two to anything else any day.

Need less to say beautifully written - you have the gift to make a reader walk with you. Enjoyed it immensly. Thank you.

 

Dear TL,

How uncanny, u hae posted the TOI clipping stuff, and so have i just a few mintutes back, and here i see yr blog.

thanks for the mention, but is it not true, real life provides us so much masala.I took interest in 2000, i dontknow how, i started to cuit clippings of unusual things that tickled me, made aa book called Naughty Stuff, Volume one, with 3 or 4 clippings pasted on a page, and 100 such pages in one book, bound it and gave to a few close friends.

Today i have 20 volumes , Naughty stuff, 1 to 20, and clippings good for 5 more books.But after blopgging came into my life in 2006, i cut the clips, but hant pasted them.:biglaugh

Eye lash curlers, well i must tell harsha this, im sure she is not aware these things exist.

And ur list , haha, exhauistive.But tell me, can u live without Indus , the pc, the mobile, and a few other things, which wre not existent in yr life say 10 years back ?

But yes, many things cease to be of any importance, and now even i will start cleaning and throwing out the old memories of junk, that i dont even look at for years, and causing clutter all around.

superb one, and keep coming with more of these, and always remember me, for i gave u the idea.HAHA

REgards

kamal

 

Hi Lakshmi.

Another stupendous post. My!! I am your lover TL :biglaugh - lover of your word power.
I thank the newsitems that caught your attention becos otherwise this nice piece would not have reached us.

But then nothing needs to catch ur attention. When you could write so well about the post that wasn't and your name being cow, we need to have no doubts abt what u cannot write about.

Ur list of living with or without was nice. As Kamalji says, I now cannot live without IL I feel. Otherwise my association with you would die isn't it?

Cannot just imagine about eye lash curlers. And the no. of sites our google friend gave u is another surprise. But then he can list out countless websites on any damn thing - even that we may not know.

And so nicely u have made us remember well in this context - our dears Kamalji and K2S?

Very nice piece TL. Another feather on your cap? Waiting for more nice things to read abt dear.

 

Dear TL,
Really I should say a strange coincidence!!! Yesterday only I was studying an aritle " The important things in your life " suddenly,I went back to a book read earlier by me. I read a book in which a New York woman, a Catholic, was asked about the impact of her faith, what it meant to her, to her life. She thought for a minute and then shrugged, and said, "If I didn’t have the Eucharist I’d just … die." I read this about 25 years ago. A number of thoughts pierced me at once! I began to scratch my mind what things are so much important to me without which I cannot survive !!! That woman is so philosophical and God minded, so She was able to reply instantly , but how about me !! I still cannot forgo certain worldly things
If you ask me " Are you addicted to coffee?My answer will be"
Almost the most important beverage in my life, I can’t spend a day without it, and it makes me feel good about it."I am addicted to coffee right up to my bone marrow.
Do not laugh when you begin to read about my next weakness!!When it comes to beauty products, I can never stop myself from buying the ‘latest gravity-defying mascara’ or the ‘most hydrating lipstick ever invented’. I always find myself surrendering my cash readily each time I shop at a departmental store or pharmacy. As long as it is makeup-related, I have to try it.My assumption is it will help me boost my mood with beauty( if there is anything) will also polish my appearance. I cannot live without my sense of humor. According to me,sense of humor aids people to influence others positively. In this case you can make more friends and acquaintances, because most people are likely to be around positive people in order to get positive energy in today’s world. So that’s sense of humor can gain us lots of new friends.There are so many things I cannot live without. Music, my grand kids, my DH( though we used to have arguments always) and above all IL and the brilliant snippets coming from great writers like you. I finish my long feed back and say good bye!!!
with love
pad

 

Dear Guru,

After reading this, I knew why I felt so uncomfortable when you called yourself Ekalavya, vis-à-vis me that is. Very clearly indeed, you were joking. Because Ekalavya keeps a watch over you from this side of the computer. In rapt attention, digesting every little nuance of your post.

There is no point praising your qualities as a writer. I am sure that each one of the 5000 odd fb's that will greet the post (give or take a thousand or two) will remind you (even though memory didn't find a place in your can't do without list) that you are well past what was a sapling of a potential.

Let me therefore go directly to the heart of the matter. The heart you know, the silly thing that keeps thumping solely to remind you about the air that you can't live without. (No logical error here, air having had found a place in your list.)

I wish though that the order were to be reversed to "air and love" from "love and air". And this exactly is where the heart of the matter lies. Some people appear to believe that the heart is where love dwells. They are wrong of course, I mean both logically as well as "bio-logically". The heart after all is a pump and, however much you try, you can't possibly pump love, either in or out of your system. Not at least with the help of your heart. That's the logical part.

Add to it the biology of it. I mean the fact that you don't even know whom or what you love unless you have a functional brain. Aye, when it comes to love, it's the brain that is the villain or the angel of the piece. If I were to be rid of my brain (of course, you might tend to believe that in my dirty old age I am already relieved of it), I doubt that the heart thing would do me any good as far as love goes. Just go and watch the guys who recline in comatose calm inside ICU ventilators and you will know the truth of what I am saying. They don't exactly wear a lovelorn expression on their faces, do they? Ah yes, they do not miss the air part, given that the heart is pumping, but, quite certainly, they miss the love-beat which heartbeats can never compensate for.

OK, I admit defeat. You were not speaking about an ordering of your likes and dislikes. Not sequential in other words, but simultaneous. You like them both, each one as much as the other. In other words, you don't wish to end up inside a ventilator simply to breathe. Nor do you look forward to your brain being donated (Jyoti Basu style) to be researched upon by scientists who specialize heartlessly on brains alone!

I have to agree, no way out. You need the air and the love in a wholesale package, not at the Metro retail chain. All I am suggesting is that you had better add the heart and the brain to your list. The love and the air that you hold on to with the passion of a Zubin Mehta conducting The Nutcracker will turn into vacuous objects (concepts) unless you keep the vital tools, the stuff inside your skull and the cardiac muscles, ready to serve you with military precision. (Incidentally, I just googl-overed that my heart must have beaten around 2.5 billion times by the time I went past my last birthday. I guess the chap's pretty tired by now.)

And now that I have access to my mind, I am worried. Where do I store it? Not next to the Jyoti Babu thing in jar full of chemicals, do I? Ah, the skull, the skull. Surely, that's one more thing I can't do without. "What about me though?" whines my heart. (I didn't exactly hear it whine, mind you. You haven't endowed me with eardrums yet. But the mind feels. So, I know I guess, even if I don't hear.) Yes of course. The heart doesn't seem to enjoy the ventilator anymore than your brain loves to keep JB's brain company in a liquid filled jar. So, a cage appears to be essential too, to imprison the prodigal heart.

Where does that take me? Well, I have a skull now and a ribbed cage. They store in safety the only two things on earth I can't live without. Yet, the stuff inside the skull appears to be restive. It's missing something. Oh come on, don't ask for more. You got what you wanted. Don't behave like Kamalji's Lodha guy. It keeps coiling and uncoiling inside the brain box nonetheless. Well I know what it's asking for. Don't you too? A pair of eyes silly! Or else, how can it see what my mind has fallen in love with.

How will I read Cheeniya's posts without my eyes? How will I lose myself in TL's wondrous prose? Eyes, yes eyes need to be added to the list. And no sooner was this added than Helen Keller objected. "Who says you need eyes or even ears? Haven't you heard of Louis Braille," she says, I mean writes. (Well, you have caught me on the wrong foot here I know. Helen did learn to speak a little and that experience was far more exciting than man's landing on moon. Google, unless you know already.)

Louis Braille​

Now, Braille raises a new problem. I have a secured a heart and a brain, but no eyes because Helen objected. She doesn't seem to know, however, that TL hasn't allowed me fingers yet. Why should she after all? As I said in the very beginning, I am the Ekalavya and she the true Drona. She doesn't wish me to possess fingers. May be she likes her other student Cheeniya more! So, Helen dear, eyes are a must for me. I want to see the bright blue sky, the roaring oceans, the butterflies fluttering, beautiful little girls running around in pink frocks. I want to see it all, all the things that you stopped seeing. Yet you saw them, because your brain was larger than mine. With my puny little brain, I need eyes dear.

Helen Keller​

And along with the eyes, I want my fingers too, if only to touch softly the cute brown puppy that's dying to catch my attention.

Dear, dear TL. Forgive me please. I want them all. Every little thing in God's creation. I translated the last stanza of a Bengali poem (by one of the greatest of Bengali poets) not too long ago for the benefit of the wise owl of this site Cheeniya. I have forgotten the way that translation went. So, here's a second try!

Still, each night, I witness, Ah dear,
A decrepit owl, blind and old,
Comes and sits on the branch of the peepul tree,
Rolls its eyes and says: 'Has the super-aged moon been washed away by the flood?
Wonderful!
Time then to catch a rat or two' --
Grandma dear, how profound! Is it wonderful to this day?
I too will grow old like you -- I'll ferry Old Lady Moon
Across the flood waters at Kalidaha
And then, the two of us will wipe out clean
The endless cellars of Life.

(Aat bochhor aager ekdin -- A Day Eight Years Ago by Jibanananda Das.)

Jibanananda Das​

Love.

oj-da