Sunday, June 29, 2008

About A Name

A journey of a thousand li begins with a single step. For a blog, one must perforce start with a title. Having flirted for long with the idea of writing one, it surprised me yesterday that this seemingly minor detail had missed my attention. Afternoon soon turned to evening in musing saddi Dilli's traffic volumes on an otherwise uneventful day. The mind kept going back to questions of a nomenclatural kind though, even as the decision for dinner was made in favour of Khan Market next-door over Select Citywalk. Regardless, the condiments on offer failed to stir any divine ideas. Nor was the resident critic in one of her more indulgent moods.

So I slept over it.

And it came to me early Sun morning (confessedly an uncharacteristic action for the hour in my case). The math, as they say, is clear: there are really only two original numbers, zero and one. If you went from zero to one, and then again more than once, you would have many. Equally, there is no other way to get to many than to start with one. Hence, One is Me.

'Many', on the other hand, may well invite charges ranging from mere egotism to ominous megalomania! My defence is simple: the reference is not to any precocious assumptions of following (not that such be unwelcome) but to the multiple touch-points that is Life. Amidst its myriad hues and shapes, inspiring ideas and individuals, and inimitably diverse emotions and expressions, we find life in atoms and Atlases (that dance in a marvelous interdependence for existence) and beyond.

Let it, therefore, be my stated intent to open this multitude of experiences; and humbly seek to add to them through reactions, suggestions or comments. From One to Many, back some; and then some more!