Tag: United States

Brownness, Myself, Writing

No Words

Sanjay Sabarwal
English: Man with a turban, Bhopal, India. Fra...
English: Man with a turban, Bhopal, India. Français : Homme avec un turban, Bhopal, Inde. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

.

The music fills the room and my soul. Silence is my best friend while I pray for the music to enter me. I wait for inspiration. Nothing. Silence. I keep waiting.

No words come to mind.  I am blank.  The heart is too full of hurt and regret to allow anything out to anyone.  Time passes. The coffee cools.  Outside, I see a few old couples power walking.  Usually one is ahead of the other.  What is it about doing things as a race?  But that’s not true either. I know that’s my perception. My need to compete with anything. Always me. The “I” never lets go.  Me. Me. Me.

I notice the old man.  I have been seeing him for years. He is an old turbaned Indian, clean shaven, riding a bicycle.  Slowly. Methodically. Sometimes he is a carrying a child but mostly he is alone, chugging along. I often wonder who he is,  but really the main question I have for him is: Why the turban?  I want to ask “Are you from a village” or “Are you a Sikh who does not believe in keeping the hair?”  Where are you going, my friend?  Do you realize you have become a staple in my life?  A quiet one.  Someone who seems to ride by me whenever I am struggling with who I am.  You are a sign, but I just don’t know about what.  I watch you slowly go by me, and I am tempted to run out and stop you and ask “who are you, my friend?”  Yet, I know how crazy that is. s

So I sit here, watching you go by while the coffee has gone cold, and the words still seem to be eluding me.  Silence. The music keeps playing…

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My Past, Myself

Three Words

Sanjay Sabarwal
A hoodie with the University of California, Lo...
A hoodie with the University of California, Los Angeles trademark. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I don’t know.  The three words I can always count on in my life. I have struggled with who I am for the longest time.  I think that the only time I was sure what I wanted to be was when I won a writing competition in high school (the NCTE) that allowed me acceptance into UCLA. After that, it was one giant slippery slope.  I became unsure if being an English major was enough, then got caught up in promoting and creating events in college (South Asian Youth Conference, Bruin Bhangra,etc) , and I thought I had a knack for it. My family couldn’t afford for me to go, so I took on being a dishwasher as well as doing dorm security to make tuition. I became even more confused. Did I want to just become a write? How will I survive?  So I added Political Science as well, because I thought I was special and could do both. That added another year so I took almost 5 years to graduate.

I still think that college was perhaps the best time of my life because it allowed me to almost figure out who I am, yet in some ways it spoiled me. I avoided real life, and so after college I took on Americorps and ended up in Lexington, Kentucky where I tutored juvenile delinquents in English for a year. Again, I got busy in volunteering, and not really facing myself.  After coming back, I somehow decided on law school at the Southwestern University School of Law, but not in old program, the SCALE program, the only 2 year law program in the country at the time.  I decided to go with being unconventional because it allowed me to avoid real life. So went the story of my life, yet I also know I am not being fair with myself.  I make not knowing seem a bad thing, but what I really mean is my hunger for knowledge has never died.  I like to think it keeps me young. Sometimes saying “I don’t know” is also saying “I want more.”

 

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Brownness

Goals (on Turning 40)

Sanjay Sabarwal
University of California, Los Angeles; UCLA
University of California, Los Angeles; UCLA (Photo credit: COG LOG LAB.)

NWA’s ” Straight Out of Compton” turned on, taking me right back to my freshman year at UCLA.  I am at the gym, leg pressing 300 pounds, arm curling 50 pounds feeling like a beast.  I was 18, a wanna be mustache dancing on my lip, Gangsta rap in my blood. I felt bad ass as I pushed out 10 reps.  2 more circuits to go.  That was then, this is now.  I push out 540, and curl 100 but the gut sticks out, and my 40 years feels like 400 on me.  I am not UCLA Sanjay anymore, more like Useless Sanjay but that’s just my self-pity talking.

A few years ago, I had the same goals as I did today, but the only difference was passion.  Whereas, before I just wished to be in better shape, I now WANT to be better.  I know I can get to a six pack, the only regret being that it would be 22 years AFTER the fact, but you know what, it’s how it makes me feel NOW that matters.  Everything else is just mere whining.  Turning 40 can work miracles for someone like me who quite honestly has been quite comfortable for quite a while.

I start each day knowing that one day closer to my goal of being in the best shape of my life.  The real reason: I don’t want to die needlessly. I don’t want to die because of something I could have prevented, but most of all I don’t want to die before I really do accomplish all that I want from my life.  It really is that simple. I want to live my life not live day-to-day.

Why do you wake up each morning?

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Myself

Best Friend: A Blog Post

Sanjay Sabarwal
by Jemal Yarbrough

Sometimes, just looking at an image reminds of you the possibility of life, specifically on how a day can do.  My best friend Jemal managed to do that for me today.  I don’t know if he realizes how much of an influence he has been in my life.  We started as law school colleagues, part of the SCALE program at Southwestern School of Law, not realizing that we would still be keeping in touch more than a decade later.  Our days are Thursday as I happen to have a weekly meeting in morning near his house, and in those few hours we manage to keep each other sane.  I think I get the better end of the deal as he has to hear my incessant whining about something or the other.  As much as he will hate this blog post, I could not resist the opportunity to acknowledge his brilliance as an attorney but also his creative side.

If you follow this blog in any sort of way, you will notice that a majority of the images are by Jemal’s amazing photography.  His images manage to always move me with their intense focus and simplicity.  He manages to say more in one image than I can with a 1000 word post.  Each of us have something that is uniquely ours to own, and Jemal has made photography his bitch.  Sometimes, you have to let the ones close to you know how much they mean to you.  Love ya bro!

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Myself, Writing

Energy: A Blog Post

Sanjay Sabarwal
Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...
Image via CrunchBase

I remember writing few months back where all my energy, ideas and focus melded into one need to get the story done.  I was smiling and truly enjoying the process, just living the dream of being a writer, knowing that what was being laid down was pretty good and I could do this.  I want that moment back, those blissful hours when it seemed becoming a writer full time was not a fantasy, that I was good enough dammit!  Yet lately, I seem to have found people who either don’t think much of my writing or dismiss it.  Worse, still I have others who manage to always feel bad about blogging or posting on Facebook even when I am supremely careful of not blogging names and keeping my status updates to a minimum.  I feel stifled and trapped into being a certain type of personality on social media as if I have to apologize for being open about my thoughts and feelings.  Sure, I have said too much sometimes and called out others when it was not my business to, and to that I can only apologize and call it a learning process, yet I feel trapped with the label of someone who talks too much.  It’s soul and creativity killing to know that my words are scrutinized to be either dismissed or confirm my status as a big mouth.

I want my words to have the energy they did when I wrote freely and got them out of being in my body, bottled up for so long.  That’s where I want to get to.  Let’s hope that the ones who are judging me know that they are killing me softly.

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Family, Myself

Regret: A Blog Post

Sanjay Sabarwal
UBC Hospital
Image via Wikipedia

“Hey Sanjay, your _______ has been taken to the hospital.  Nothing to be worried about and…” the rest of the words were a blur as the immense guilt overwhelmed as I imagined that person not being part of my life.  In mili seconds, all the memories, half-said reminders to do more, talk more, spend more time with that all important person hit, and I numbly went through the motions of changing out of my workout clothes and got into the shower.  The water touched my body but not my mind, and I cannot remember if I had soaped myself or just stood in the water, aching for all the things I never got around to doing with them.  “Please, please let it be all ok. Please let them be here” I prayed to the nameless entity, my entire soul focused on the regrets of not doing more, of the last time I met them and the laughter we shared. I just could not imagine not seeing them during my wedding, now only 28 days more and wondered what kind of cruel Being takes away even that much happiness from me and them.

It was at 1am and as I sat in that hospital room, relieved that for now everything was ok, I was ashamed at my selfishness.  I only thought about me and my feelings, and tried to imagine how they must feel to lie in that bed and know that each subsequent hospital visit could be their last.  I watched as they breathed gently, at peace and smiling drowsily each time the nurse came by, jarring us both with the harsh light, apologizing for intruding but not really meaning it.

So there we sit in that room, regret my friend while relief the soldier who conquered that small room, allowing for another day, another moment, of just being with them.

Darkness. Light. Regret.  Relief.  We are who we allow ourselves to be.

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