Christmas week arrived and we decided that it was cold. Just cold. It has only been in the last two years that I have tuned into the reality of the environment around me and noticed that it colored my sentiments. I had always felt that my mood radiated from within. To a large extent, this is true. I am guessing that it is the advent of age (not wisdom) that is forcing me to acknowlege my natural surroundings and how they affect my corporeal self.

The net was that we went on a short order trip to the beach, just two hours out. We ended up at a hotel that was under construction (which is another blog post in and of itself. I am not a beach person per se, but the idea of taking my kite and flying it (literally) at the beach has been compelling. On day two, there was fair weather. So while Rai plunged fearlessly into the water - just to her knees thank goodness - and my wife took in the angry sea of the winter, I flew my kite.

I spent less than an hour kite flying, but in that time I observed that there is much to be learned in flying kites.

1. You can get your kite to fly a lot higher if you ask for help.
When I started to fly my kite, I realized that I needed somebody to hold it. I now have a fancy stunt kite that is balanced to perfection. It has a dual string holder and I can make it do tricks. Yet in order to get it off the ground, I had to get somebody to hold it for me.

2. It's easy to do what is familiar. To learn new things, you have to be prepared to fail
I have mastered the art of moving my kite from left to right. I get it to dance just a bit. But I wanted to figure out how to do a dip. I realized quickly that this meant that the kite would bite the dust. Once it did, I needed help getting it back up again.

3. You can do things by yourself, but it takes more time and more energy.
I tried to get the kite up in the air by myself, releasing the string a little at a time. I was halfway successful before the string started to cut at my hands. I needed gloves to do this successfully. It dipped and tanked. Back to square 1.

4. People are willing to help if you ask
This is a big one.

5. Having a kite billowing in the catches of the oceanside wind is magnificent.
Sometimes, the most amazing moments are when you have time to stop and listen to yourself breathe. My neck had a crick in it from looking up. The kite just stayed up there. But having the time to let myself breathe was - as they say in the Mastercard ads in the States - priceless.

They say home is where the heart is. Given the physical limitations we live by, most of us pick one physical home. What then about a virtual home? In this day and age, particularly in the last three years, it has become increasingly too easy to make a place for yourself in one of multiple social networking venues.

When I think about how I arrived at Yahoo 360 it was convenience. I already had a Yahoo id. I wanted to start blogging to understand the dynamics of the blogosphere, and I didn't want the hassle of multiple ids. I chuckle when I think about that now. I did not pick 360 because of the features and functions it offered. I learned to live with shortcomings, taking delight instead, in the wonderful friends I made here, and the lively community that formed around our combined blogging.

Then Yahoo decided that 360 wasn't sexy enough. I do believe that they had the rear end handed to them by places like MySpace and FaceBook, by way of generating community activity and time spent online. That announcement and intention to close down 360 at some point caused a mass exodus that has caused the current condition.

I know that many of the friends I made here continued to blog. After all, a company's decision to close down their blogging environment doesn't shut down the writer. So now I find myself on FaceBook, primarily for work purposes, on Sulekha, and 360.

What is annoying about 360 is that it is built under proprietary standards, which makes it difficult to pull into other places. For example, I'm pulling in my 360 blog to FaceBook, but it hardly looks the way it looks here. What is more frustrating is the fracture of comments. As bloggers we know that the content that we put out here becomes significantly enhanced by the how our readership interacts with it.

While I am investigating whether it is possible to make use of something like disqus or intensedebate, I doubt it is the case. 360 is an 'as-is' service I fear. While it is disappointing, as an Offerings Manager who is struggling to build an equivelant environment at work, I fully understand business decisions that are based on priorities and available resources.

My ideal choice would be to find a way to get feedback from this set of great readers and friends I now have, while plugging into an environment that will allow me features that allow for better syndication and flexibility for my writing.

How do you make your decisions about where to park yourself?
At what point does the pain of using a particular site become so bad that it makes you want to move?
What would you be willing to sacrifice by way of function in order to stay connected with friends? Would you sacrifice the opportunity to make new contacts or attract a wider readership?

Questions, questions questions.

I've been floating around and doing this and that. Close to a year ago, I stopped blogging personally. It was for no particular reason as well as for many reasons. It's one of those things your friends understand instinctively and that you couldn't explain to a stranger if you had all the hours of the day.

All of this changed at about 8pm this last Friday night, about thirty five minutes into the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire'. A young Jamaal and Salim are playing around as usual in the ghats when they are beset by a group of Hindu radicals, seeking revenge for atrocities done to their own. At first came the academic instinct to try and figure out which riots these were, so as to try and intellectually process whether the happenings were being depicted accurately. I realized with some amount of trepidation that it was an attempt to keep what I was watching at bay. After all, wrapping logic around an event is a convenient way to not experience it.

So I stopped doing it. I watched and felt the terror in the little boy's eyes. I remembered being fourteen years old and opening a bathroom door to see a wall of fire around me. It was too much. I had to get up and leave to go to the bathroom. I cried there, got tissues and came back. A glutton, I suppose, who has a perverse need to see any and all depictions of communalism; trying in some desperate way to digest things that are as yet raw and unprocessed.

I returned to the bathroom two more times during the stretch of that movie. It was just too hard for me to sit and process the unrelenting willingness on the part of Danny Boyle to engage with the grittiness and underbelly that shapes slum dwellers in Mumbai. What was powerful and potent for me was that even though I have never been to Mumbai, the story and the sentiment were all to familiar. What was dangerous was that Danny Boyle was ready and willing to truly sit and depict an emotional journey of a 'slumdog'. That meant I had to be willing to experience it.

What made Slumdog Millionaire so powerful and potent was that it didn't stop at depicting the horror and tragedy of slum life. It showed the resiliency and celebration of humanity despite tragic conditions. It would be bearable to see unrelenting violence, or individuals undergoing tragedy after tragedy. What is unbearable is to see caring and love, joy and yearning, the ability to create emotional attachments even in the face of indescribable trauma. When you see someone being cared for, it is difficult not to remember those you care about fiercely.

If I was to change anything, it would be the ending. The young Jamal answers the final question and lands himself a pot of money. In reality, he has won before he answers the question. Had he provided the incorrect answer, he would still have left that studio with that thing that he valued more than any material possession; an assurance from his beloved that she was safe, and coming to him.

We know though, that a tragic ending would not sell like a happy one.

I needed a few minutes after the movie ended as well. I was not quite prepared to give up the suspension of disbelief and go back to reality. When I did, I met my wife and friends in heated discussion about the movie. My wife said that there were 'questions' about my bathroom activity and that there were quite a few opinions about it.

I smiled. 'Well', I said 'I cried mostly'. The humor was diffused as a result. After a short silence we moved back into comfortable territory and began discussing our next meal, and who would go pick up the kids.

Nothing like the mediocrity of life to shield you from profound emotional experiences.

Twilight.

A nebulous time, one that weaves between finite times, creating a magical mixture of anticipation and nostalgia. The day, in its infinite glory is slowly winding down. Surya, after toiling all those hours, controlling his horses and driving his chariot through the cloud decked sky finally moves to repose. The moon flexes his muscles and yawns his way onto a starry sky and Rahu clenches, ready to take his next bite out of his sworn enemy.

Night has come, and it is full of possibilities.

What a magical time it is and yet so full of terror and danger. It is that possibility of excess, that time when Rakshasas are rampant, that gives it potency. Yet the feeling is that of coolness, so much in contrast to the driving heat of the sun, beating down on the weathered earth. The coolness and richness of moonbeams are so delightful in contrast. It is the time of the nocturnals. Owls eyes, rakshasa mantras, and Savyasachi (Arjuna) practicing the twang of his bow sight unseen. Sound permeates where light does not. The olfactories are heightened, as are audibles. The quiet squirrel that scurries over dry leaves to reach his tree now lumbers like a clumsy elephant; in the daytime those same footsteps would be nimble, a surefooted set of light steps.

Most every one is resting. They make their miniature visits with stillness. Perhaps they are emulating death, trying to practice for a moment that cannot ever be replicated. Some will dream, to practice for the next day; others will escape into a series of events that take them away from the nightmare that is life. For those that cannot make good their escape, there is the haunting loneliness of night.

It is an isolating experience to be awake alone at night. For those that do not have the peace of mind, there is always a danger of being consumed by ones own fears and inadequecies. Night time leaves all blemishes uncovered, no matter the minisculity. It is only those that are firmly ensconced in their sense of contentment that can take isolation and gently massage it to resemble solitude.

There is no difference you might say. At the end of it, you are there by yourself, to face the night. In this you would be absolutely right. Yet the attitude shift enables a complete paradigm shift. It must be experienced to be understood. A logical being clamoring to process it cognitively will find themselves sadly lacking.

At so many junctures, we stand at either the dawn or the dusk of a venture. Right before and right after events are when we are moved to ponder and pontificate what might be or what might have been. Dawn bringing the hope of day, or the terror of a scorching twelve hours. Twilight welcoming the coolness of Chanda mama's rays, or harkening impending demise.

Perspective and context are everything.