Another day, and news of another life snuffed out in cruel, unexpected circumstances. This time a friend of the family, someone with whom I had limited interaction myself, but remember well. And so, it was another sobering morning spent reflecting once more on the fragility of life and the capriciousness of fate. 

Lots of questions, but very few answers. Ultimately, I think we must confront the reality that so much of our lives is out of our hands. And yet, so much of it is. Which is which and what is what? And why haven't I got a copy of the manual? I look for signs and try to discern patterns, switching intermittently between hope and despair. 

Are you living today like it's your last day on earth? I was thinking about this and came up with a few reasons why I should, and also why I shouldn't. Scrambled thoughts, on an increasingly scrambled day. 

Obviously, treasure each moment. Never be oblivious to the magic that is all around you, the miracle of existence, the devastating beauty of the here and now. And yes, make the most of it. Fill each unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run and all that, but also make sure you're not ruled by a sense of urgency. 

There was a time when I was hung up on the 'Art is long but Time is fleeting' mantra and the tragic implications of that. Taken to its extreme, it meant that every minute not spent crafting a piece of art was an unforgivable waste of time; another round lost in a fight you were never going to win. 

There is a point up to which this is useful; beyond that, it is cripplingly counter-productive. There must always be a place for calm and solitude. For walking when you can run. Yes, there's a middle ground somewhere, but it might as well be Middle Earth to me because I am still trying to pull it from the realms of fantasy into my own reality. 

Someone once said "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever". Again, I can see there is something to be said about coming to terms with your mortality. 

As the late Steve Jobs once famously said: "Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." 

And yet, I think it is equally important to pay heed to the future. To look forward, with hope, to a time that has not yet come. To consider the long-term implications of your actions in the present. When you do this, you realise there are often real, important things that you stand to lose. And, without wanting to sound too self-important, there may well be others in your life who stand to lose from your absence too. 

So it is right to improve your chances of sticking around longer by looking after both body and mind, so that when you reach the point where time (and it's been known to happen) seems to stretch out before you like a vast ocean, you will still have something to fill the unforgiving minutes with. Besides, a part of you does live forever, does it not? Even if it's just in the memories of those who never stop loving you. 

So, sure, come to terms with mortality, but ask immortality to the dance. It will be short, but what a dance it could be; what a beautiful life. 

Scrambled, scrambled, scrambled. But I guess I've never been a sunny-side-up kind of guy.

Plough the land

These were the only three words a writer I once met said to me when I asked him for some writing advice. I tried to press him for details but he repeated the same three words- plough the land. 

Every so often I think about that brief encounter and why he chose those precise words- perhaps he knew I came from a country where agriculture makes up a large proportion of the GDP, and would therefore get a farming reference? Perhaps he was a farmer himself? 

(I then have to stop myself because I am obviously over-thinking it. It is a terrible habit and I sometimes wonder whether it has something to do with this one time when I was twelve and...aaaagh! Must stop.)

Anyway, the point of this post is to say that I thought about it again today and have decided that what he meant was essentially this: Do the work. The dull, repetitive, unglamorous, hard graft type of work. The reading, relentless research, the note-making. Confronting the daily tyranny of the blank page. 

Because if you're a writer, the one thing you might have in common with a farmer is this: you need to prepare the ground. 

Just so that, hopefully, at some beautiful moment in the indeterminate future when the stars seemingly align and a seed of inspiration arrives unbidden like rain, it falls on the fertile soil of your imagination, takes root, and turns into a magic beanstalk that keeps growing till it kisses the clouds. 

 There. I am certain that is what he meant.

How to never grow old (or at least slow down the process)

Last week I had the good fortune of seeing tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain in concert for the second time. The first time was about 15 years ago, at an all-night Indian classical festival back in India. It's possible I might be romanticising the event a little, but I have a vivid memory of sitting transfixed as Hussain proceeded to cast a spell on the assembled audience, with his eyes closed and a big smile on his serene face. 

It was one of those occasions when time seemed both to stand still and speed up all at once. As his fingers danced over the goat-skins of the drums, the darkness seemed to retreat almost in deference- making way as the sun peeked over the distant hills and bathed everything in a sort of ethereal glow. The intervening years have done little to dim the magic of those glorious few minutes. 

But back to last week. 
We didn't have the best seats in the house, but they were close enough for me to notice two things: 

1. The smile was as big as ever. 
2. He looked like he hadn't aged a day. 

As I watched him weave another one of his musical spells, I couldn't help but think that this gift, this passion, was surely the life-force keeping him this way. (Perhaps good genes too, but we'll leave that aside for the moment) 

Watching Zakir Hussain is to watch not just one of the finest masters of the tabla at work, but also maybe one of its keenest students. The joy on his face as he regarded both the results of endless practice as well as spontaneous alchemy was as much of a pleasure to behold as the performance itself. 

Somehow, I knew he felt the same excitement he did when he performed a soundtrack to a sunrise fifteen years ago, but also maybe it goes back even further; all the way back to when he first laid eyes on these little drums and decided that he was going to spend the rest of his life tapping them with his fingers. 

I thought about other people who seemed to have the same Peter Pan-like quality. AR Rahman seemed a good example of another musician, likewise Sachin Tendulkar and Roger Federer in sports. I am sure there are so many more, but to me these are people who seemed to lose themselves in their art. They appear to derive at least as much pure, child-like joy from it as we do from watching them. 

It's a wonderful thing to know exactly what you were born to do, and then have the will and courage to completely give in to it. Watching Zakir Hussain is to get a glimpse of what it's like. 

If you don't yet know what your passion is, there's still time to try and find out. And if you do know, chase it down. Follow it to where it takes you, no matter the cost. It's worth it; and I am pretty sure it works better than all the anti-ageing cream in the world.