Happy to be alive!

What is it about airplanes? And airports. Everytime I fly, it makes me pull out my laptop, open up a notepad and write. And if i can do it with music in my ears, well that's what I want to be doing all my life.

Right now I am on Continental flight C0212 from Newark to Tampa. It's a 2 hour something flight of which an hour is already over and I have an hour and 13 minutes left of my laptop's battery, so it's going to work out just fine. Bombay Jayashree is rendering Theenda Theenda Paarvai Theenda (from the film Chinna) in my ears. It's the only song I have on my laptop, so it's on repeat mode and I am fine with that because this is the kind of song that can take me high up into an ethereal space and leave me asking for more. (Talk about high up at 30,000 feet above sea level!). She just started out on her second rendition...

There's an interesting story about how this is the only song on my laptop. And it makes me say it here becuase it is a lovely coincidence. My laptop has been reecently suffering from spyware. I contacted my company's helpdesk and after several attempts at remote control vaccination, the only advice they had for me was that someone needed to physically look at it. So much for being a work at home user. I wonder why the technology experts can't fix this simple thing. It's frustrating. Anyways, that having been said, I was thinking of mailing my laptop to our office up in Rochester, NY (I live in New Jersey) and thought I must kill all the music I was carrying on my laptop (not that I had much anyway), lest the technology wizards blame the spyware on the music files and report me to the moral police in the organization that cries hoarse about people carrying personal entertainment material on their company-provided laptops. (Oops! That was a long sentence). I tend to digress often so pardon me. So I decided to delete all the music files on my laptop and I opened up the MyDocuments folder, opened up the MyMusic folder, pressed the Ctrl and A keys together (which in case you did not know, selects all files in the folder) and then pressed the Shift and Delete keys together. Kaboom! All my music files were gone. The biggest Bombay Jayashree fan in the world had just destroyed his biggest passion (only after cricket, but that's not happening much when you are 35 in New Jersey in the winter, so...) And so the music files were all killed. I also repeat myself a lot, if you did not notice it.

I wept! I cried uncontrollably. When I had exhausted all the Kleenex tissues (it's actually Wegman's. I go for low cost options, you see!) I decided to be pragmatic about it and sane. It's just music. "I will make a CD", I told myself. But I really missed the music. Of all the songs I had, there was this one recent acquistion, titled Theenda Theenda Paarvai Theenda from the film Chinna that I missed most. That is the one song I would have done anything to retain. If you want to know how obscure this song is try searching for this song on the internet. Youtube does not have it, Raaga does not have it and forget it, most people haven't even heard of it, forget hearing it. I remembered what my sister told me when I asked her where she got this song from. She said she actually paid 99 cents to download this song from some obscure website. I don't even remember the name of this site now. That's how obscure!!!

So the story goes. Having decided that I was going to ship my laptop to my helpdesk, I decided it would only be wise to organize all my important files so that they could easily back it up. I needed to move everything to one single location so that they could easily make a back-up of that folder, or drive, if you will. So I decided to move on in life and clean up MyDocuments becuase that's where I keep all my working folders and files and all my permanent material lies on the E drive in folders and sub folders. I am kinda organized, you know. It was when I was doing this that I realized that there was a folder called GoogleTalk Received files in MyDocuments. I opened it up to see what was in there and lo! it was there. No suspense here, but there it was. This obscure song that my sister paid 99 cents to get from some obscure site that I don't remember the name of. Was I thrilled? I was thrown into raptures just as I am now hearing the guitar piece in the interlude. Just listen to that guitar piece. It's worth a million dollars. I say 99 cents is dirt cheap. This is the 5th rendition and I am simply loving it.

Now comes the important part. The coincidence that I talked about. I usually get to the point at some point, so rest assured. First, I have to thank the lord Sai Baba of Shirdi whom I believe and worship. Not just because he has given me this moment where I am in a state of ecstasy right now, listening to my favourite music and writing away to glory. I don't know if I said this, but I would be thrilled if someone would pay me to do this. Travel on planes, listen to music and write endlessly. OK I am coming back the point! I am not thankful to Baba just for this experience but because the conicdence by itself is about him and his sacred book, the Satchartira. I usually read one chapter from the Satcharitra everyday. There are some days I miss reading and the last 2 have been such days. So when I got my itinerary yesterday to go from Philadelphia to Tampa and it had a morning flight from Philadelphia to Newark which was one hour, I decided the only thing I would be doing on that flight was reading the 3 chapters I needed to be up to speed. The very first chapter was chapter 41, which is about the gentleman Ali Mohammed, who falls ill and is encouraged by his brother-in-law to get rid of the large picture of saints that he has at his house and believes that it is idolatry and worship of form that is causing him the ill health. Ali Mohammed asks his manager to promptly remove all the photos from his home and drown them in the Arabian sea. He soon gets well and returns home from his brother-in-laws home (where has been convalescing) and finds to his surprise that the large photo of Sai Baba is still on the wall. He is not able to understand how when he had ordered for all the photos to be drowned in the sea, only the photo of Sai is still with him. He is moved by this and his faith in Sai only increases. However, still afraid that his brother-in-law may be mad at him for having the picture at home, he hands over the picture to Hemadpant, the author of the magnificient Satcharitra.

7th or 8th? Truly I have lost count of how many times I have now listened to this song. But I know for sure that I felt the same elation that Ali Mohammed felt when I found this song still on my laptop. And I will go listening to it till my laptop's battery fails or until the flight attendants announce that it is time for descent and time to stop using approved electronic devices.

I wish I could go on writing too. But the only thing I can think of right now is thanking Baba for these simple wonderful moments that he has given me in life. I have been at loggerheads with Baba for several things that have going on in life recently. I am in the midst of a terrible impasse, waiting for a signigicant change in my work portfolio and being wait-listed for admission to an Executive MBA program at Columbia Business School, New York. When the Director of Admissions at Columbia called me for the first time to let me know of the decision to put me on the wait-list, he asked me to keep in touch every ten days. It has been exactly 30 days hence (he called me on November 3rd) and when I called him yesterday, he thanked me for my patience and asked me to wait for one more week. "Oh God! This is killing me", I thought. Columbia is actually the second on my "WAIT" list. Exactly ten years ago, I was wait-listed by IIM-Bangalore and waited one month, hanging from another cliff, only to be told at the end of one month that the wait-list was not being activated. That was certainly the toughest month of my entire life. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't concentrate on work and the only thing I thought of was IIM-B. I was 25 and was dreaming big. At 35, the "dreaming big" has not gone away, but only this time, I have been hanging from that cliff for a similar month, and now there is an ant crawling up my legs into my pants.

But this time, I have a stronger support. I have Baba. He has guided me through this painful journey. There have been moments when I lashed out in my mind, fighting with him and told him that he is heartless that he has made me go through the grind so thanklessly. But the Satcharitra I read, the daily messages I read from the flip calendar I have from the Sai Temple in Chicago and my wife (who is a bigger Sai Bhakta than I have ever seen anyone to be) have guided me through this phase.

I just got the first blurb that said that my battery is soon to die, but I just hit Alt-F, S and saved my work, so I will go on. And I just realize that though it will be great to have a Columbia EMBA, all I need is flights to everywhere, some music in my ears and a notepad. And I will go on and on and on.

Thank you Baba. Thank you for this moment. And thank you for every single moment I am alive.

BJ just compelted her exth rendition and my laptop will soon crash. But then, I will safely, land, and still be alive...

Glory be to Baba. Peace be to all.