You haven’t changed a bit in all the ways that matter!
And so …

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
        For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
        That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

— The Bard (as rendered by the Dench)

The last five years have been, to put it mildly, a bit trying.
I lost my father, my brother, my clients¹, and quite a bit of my sanity.
I lost a lot of weight and then gained it all again.
The career pivot is going slower than expected.
I feel pettily jealous of the bright young minds I mentor, when they go on to accomplish great new things, while I am here, clawing the mud.
There are days, I don’t want to get out of bed at all.

And then I have to remind myself, that all of this could change in an instant.
There was no way I could be sure when I slept yesterday, that I would see the dawn today.
While I crib and cry boohoo at my life, there are folks who struggle physically, mentally, and spiritually a lot more than I do.

Even when I thought my world was falling apart, there were so many things that held my body, mind and soul together.
I stood on a mountain, to touch the clouds.
I’ve walked in mossy green forests.
I stood with my beloved under the stars, as it rained light upon us.
I have my health.
I have my friends, young and old, new and old.
I have my mother and the rest of my family.
I have my long suffering, better half. The one who makes life worth living. My rock. My anchor. The one who makes me whole.
I’m surrounded by warmth and love.
I remain blessed.

And so, I remain doggedly, carpe diem-ly, persistent.
I remain grateful.
I will do my best to, as May Swenson² puts it,

Enter each day
as upon a stage
lighted and waiting
for your step

Crave upward as flame
have keenness in the nostril
Give your eyes
to agony or rapture

and to …

Take earth for your own large room
and the floor of the earth
carpeted with sunlight
and hung round with silver wind
for your dancing place

“He’s dead?” said Princess.
[…] “Who told you that?” said Grandad.

“We keep that name moving in the Overhead,” he said, and it seemed to Princess that the wind in the shutter arrays above her blew more forlornly […]
His name is in the code, in the wind, in the rigging, and the shutters.
Haven’t you ever heard the saying,

‘Man’s not dead while his name is still spoken’?”

Excerpted from Terry Pratchett’s, Going Postal

“So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not Ill-supplied but wasteful of it.”
[…]
All things that are still to come lie in uncertainty; live straightway!”
― Lucius Annæus Seneca, On the Shortness of Life

Thank you, for sharing my journey with me!

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Love looks pretty on you.
Makes you soft, tender, proud.
Makes you sit up and take notice.
Gives you a home to set down your things.

What a blessing it is, to have music and dancing and poetry.

What a gift it is, to look at someone and say,
I’m so happy to have found you
at last, at last, at long, long last
you’re here.

— Lang Leav

It has also been a blessing to walk by your side, sharing our lives.
It’s hard to think of me, without you anymore.
Like Leav writes, “Every time I see my name, I hear it in your voice.”
Happy Birthday, my heart!
I love you.

This birthday is my first without Daddy.
And so this post today, because I want these words out of my head and heart, before they overwhelm me.

Dad & I have birthdays immediately following each other (the 25th & 26th.)
All my birthday memories are inextricably linked with him.
Him being indulgent with his firstborn.
Him holding me close and sharing his cake with me as I grew.
Him taking care of me and letting me crawl into his lap to say our prayers on cold mornings in our small drafty house.
Him being patient with me during my crazy headed years.
And always waiting for me, for our shared birthday cake.
Me loving the fact that I could share my cake with him as I grew.
That I could take care of him, like he did me.
That I was a sterner dad to him, than he ever was to me.

And now for the first time, in 40 years, I do not have a hand holding mine and I feel utterly bereft.
While the Bible and the Stoics remind me that dust indeed I am, I’ll forever be indebted to God, that my father was my rock.

Not all superheroes wear capes!

Happy birthday, Mummy!
Love from Daddy …
and the rest of your entire brood!

Omnia mors æquat.

“Death levels all things.”

— Claudianus

And so, I take each new day with gratitude.

You turn 34 today!
I’ve known you for seventeen of those years.
(I’ve known you half your life! :)
We’ve been in love, eight.
And I’ve been privileged to share my life with you,
and walk with you for nearly, six.

I cannot imagine life without you.

You love crazy movies;
(Which you drag me to.)
You can engineer anything out of anything.
(rain gutters out of old bisleri bottles,
window screens out of old packing material.)
You fill our home with warmth.
(occasionally by burning stuff on the stove,
mostly with love and cakes.)
You keep me sane.
(by reminding me, that all we ever need is love and fresh air.)

You’re wiser than me,
stronger than me,
and way cooler than me :)

Happy birthday, sweetheart ❤️
I love you!

For all the photos I’ve shot of people, I still don’t have one of yours :)
You’ve been my guilty secret :P

While my life has been filled with turmoil, for the past fifteen years, you’ve been the one I counted on.
You’ve always been my rock!

You made sure work was a safe haven and a joy to do.

Boss, mentor, big brother, mother, father, best friend, you’ve been all that and more.

You’re the only one I can truly be myself with
I can tell you anything.
You taught me integrity.
You taught me how to form lasting friendships.
You taught me to laugh at myself.
You taught me how to live.

It’s been 20 years now.
You’ve been a big part of me, for more than half my life.
I cannot imagine life without you being there.
Others might come and go, but you’re always the presence that arches over everything.

When I was young and ignorant, I always took you for granted.
When I was older and somewhat wiser, I was too shy to tell you, how I felt.
So even this post is, in a way, cheating.
I’m still too shy and you are still too gruff and big bearish :D

But I am thankful. And I am grateful.
And I do love you.

Happy Birthday!

Such is Mummy.
Satisfied with love.
So here’s to you Mummy!
Happy 60th!

Sometimes I think, being a mother is all she ever knows.
She had three boys by the time she was twenty eight.
Daddy worked two jobs, to feed us.
Leaving Mummy to handle three hyperactive boys.
And she did.

Daddy got laid off and was too old to find another job.
While Dad did his carpentry, Mummy figured, she could teach.
With three boys and the home and hearth and god knows how many of the neighbours kids wanting to learn from her.
All this she did.

Well, God’s taking care of us, she thought.
I should give back, she thought
And we don’t have money.
So let me work for him.
With three boys and the home and the little kids coming to learn, there is a little time to go around supporting the Church
As an animator, as an educational resource, an area coordinator, a parish coordinator, a eucharistic minister, a sunday school teacher…
This she did.

And she slogged and struggled and cried and laughed and made her way through life.
She did.

We’re a houseful of boys.
But Mummy’s the strongest.
She carries us all through life.

Her infectous laugh, her naïveté, her determination, her enormous work ethic, have not only inspired us, but a whole generation of people around her.

What little she had, she’s made so much of.

We certainly did not make life any easier for her.
But she still loves us no matter what.

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy,
it does not boast,
it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others,
it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Thus says the Bible.
That’s my mother, says I
A life well lived, that’s my mother.

All that, she is.

I was going to write a “another year, another post” post on my birthday.

I’ll still write that one, because I’m now jealous of Scott Young, who is a decade younger than me and is so much more sorted in his head and his life, that it make me jealous.

However, I got a surprise gift in my mailbox that almost tore me up.
(Yes, the video above)

I met Mother Teresa once, when I was little and all she said to me, as she blessed me was

      “Be good!”

That has always struck me as sage advice :)
So I always try (keyword being try) to leave everyone a little better than I found them.

And I am humbled, when such love is returned manifold!
Thank you Zei!
You’ve made this birthday really special.

Sad li’l Zei

Li’l goonda Zei

Li’l kooky Zei

Li’l blah Zei

Li’l “Look at me, I’m a scooty model!” Zei

Happy li’l Zei

Really happy li’l Zei

Really, really “I’m so happy I could dance, because it’s my birthday” li’l Zei

To my li’l muse,
It’s funny how you’ve walked into my life and made a place there… like you’ve always belonged!
I pray you always be happy, and that you always have your sense of innocence and gay abandon.

Happy Birthday, my little one

Lots of love,

J

• Memento Mori! I’m not superhuman. I’m lucky, nay blessed to be alive.
• Some people change… some don’t. I have to learn to live with that.
• Being debt free is an awesomely freeing feeling.
• Meditation and prayer help.
• I was a fool to have given up on reading and music.
• “Bird on a Wire” is the soundtrack to my life.
• That whenever I’m down, all I need to get rid of sad, depressive thoughts is to look up.
  That’s it. It always works.
  Crane your neck and look up. Try it :)
• I have very few friends. But they’re awesome.
• I am luckier than most when it comes to my work & career.
  Vivek & Vinay, I cannot thank you guys enough. You guys both have been so influential and so supportive in my life, I cannot express my gratitude enough. You guys are my other family. I love you for all you do.
• I spent my childhood being scared of my parents; my teens, resenting them; and my twenties in rebellion and thinking that they were not so smart.
  Turns out, they were the best thing to have happened to me.
  I know that now.
  And I will spend the rest of my life in gratitude and love as far as they go.
  And finally…
• I should have married Abbygail, twelve years ago.Yes, I was wrong Abby, and I hope this public admission lays our one long standing argument to rest :)
  The past three years with you, have been bliss and to quote The Platters… “Only you, can make this world seem right!”

Thank you, Lord!
I could not ask for more.

The man is a mystic, a loner.

I think he is content all by himself.
He likes sitting by himself, lost in his thoughts.
He used to love long walks at night gazing at the stars, when he was young and able to.
He loves listening to Jim Reeves or Patsy Cline crooning as he relaxes after a hard day at work.
His is a man of faith, of prayer.

And yet, I have never let him be.

He was never by himself, having shouldered the reponsibility of his large number of siblings, his parents, his wife and his three kids.
There was no quiet for him, with our constant demands for attention.
Yet, if I am a good responsible human, who yearns for solitude, I owe it to him.

He could never really enjoy the stars, because he had three noisy kids who would walk with him at night, peppering with with a thousand questions.
And yet, today if I enjoy the moon at night or point out the stars to my wife, I silently thank him.

He would get barely 10 minutes of listening in, before I would hog the tape deck and blare disco and pop.
Today, it’s mostly his music that I listen to.

I have had several crises of faith. But I see his devotion and think, if God is good enough for him, He’s good enough for me.

Happy Birthday, Daddy! I love you.

You have given me so much over the years and taught me so much, I cannot begin to say Thank You, enough :)

Thank you for believing in me, for pushing me, for all your pep talks, for all you’ve done for me and for being such an awesome guy :)

I could go on and on about us, but this is one little moment I’ll never forget.

In the middle of one of your pep talks to a couple of us, you pointed to me and started with, “Main isko mera chota bhai maanta hoon…”

That is all I’ll ever ask of you :)

Happy Birthday, Vinay!

There’s something to be said, when you miss a friend, daily even after donkey’s ears of being apart.

Thank you!

• for picking me up, when I was down and out
• for making me laugh
• for all your advice; on everything ever
• for being best friend and stern mentor at the same time
• for being so awesome
• for just being you

For teaching me

“No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth.”

I truly believe this now :)

So, wherever you are …
Happy Birthday Mitu Ma!
Stay blessed!
And I shall forever be grateful, for you!

PS
That’s the only pic of you I have, warts & all, so deal with it :P

Dad was what Brett McKay calls, both a good man and good at being a man.

I could write reams about my father, but I wouldn’t know where to start.

He gave me life and then has been my sustenance ever since.
He’s the source of everything that’s good in me.

His deep baritone, echoed in our fledgling church as we sung hymns every Saturday.
When I close my eyes and remember my early years, it’s his voice that sings me rhymes and lullabies.
Our love for music and song flow from that voice.

He was an artiste and master craftsman.
While he plied his trade as a carpenter, he could build a beautifully functional anything.
Our home used to be filled with carvings of little animals he made.
Speakers, he built, filled our home with music and song.
School books used to be adorned with his sketches (as was my homework)

There’s a Mickey on my bookshelf door that smiles at me, everyday.
I write these words on a table he built 25 years ago (as he did everything else at home.)
Mom never had to worry about knives or dressing tables.

If there was anything that needed doing, he’d do it.
A grassroots worker, he helped build up two little church congregations.
He helped people around in our little chawl.
“Uncle” was always helpful with time and money and chocolates for little ones who always seemed to find him, wherever he was.

He was a giver and a doer.
A Good Samaritan of the highest order, he’d give the shirt off his back if he could.
Be kind to those in need is something he lived and imbued in us.
Folks call me a sentimental fool at times.
And I’m proud! My father taught me that.

The more I live my life, the more I realise I’ve imbued so much of him.
The curiosity to always learn something new.
The strength to endure whatever life throws your way.
Valuing family over everything else.
Being kind.
Amor Fati.

And to paraphrase Brett again, as I think of the life my Dad led, as I think of the shade he sheltered me in, I’ve a painful yearning to return home.
The Greeks called this nostalgia.
And while my heart aches for that time, it’s a good ache.
I’m glad I have those memories and I’m indebted to Dad for giving them to me.