Navigation, Not Victory

 

For a long time, mountaineering was my metaphor for life.

Climb, slip, climb again. Acclimatize. Wait out storms. Accept that sometimes the most courageous decision is to turn back. Mountains teach humility quickly. They teach patience even faster. They show you—viscerally—that progress is never linear, and resilience is not bravado but the ability to pause without panic.

I thought that was the whole lesson.

But lately, another metaphor has been quietly overtaking it: navigation.

Mountains give you a snapshot of life. Navigation gives you the continuum.

On a mountain, the challenge is vertical. You see the peak. You measure gain and loss. You know when you are up, when you are down, when you are stalled by weather. The feedback is immediate. Brutally honest.

On the ocean, it’s different.

There are no visible milestones. No summit to point at and say, “There.” Some days the wind fills your sails effortlessly and you move as if the world is conspiring in your favor. Other days there is nothing—no wind, no forward motion, just heat, stillness, and the slow drain of uncertainty. The doldrums are not dramatic. They are quiet. That’s what makes them dangerous.

And yet, navigation assumes this will happen.

Traditional navigators never expected favorable winds all the time. They expected variability. They expected misalignment. They expected nights when the stars vanished behind clouds and days when progress could only be felt, not measured.

What mattered was not speed.
What mattered was orientation.

There’s a saying attributed to Mau, the great Micronesian navigator: one who knows the stars would never get lost. It’s often quoted romantically, but it’s far more practical than poetic.

Knowing the stars doesn’t mean staring at them constantly. It means holding a direction internally. It means understanding that even when the canoe is pushed sideways by wind or current, you keep the nose aligned. You correct. You compensate. You don’t confuse drift with failure.

Life feels a lot like that.

Sometimes things line up. Career, family, health, timing—all moving together, cleanly. Other times, nothing responds. Effort produces no visible outcome. You’re not sinking, but you’re not moving either. This is where people panic. They abandon their course because motion has stalled.

Navigation teaches something subtler: stillness is not the same as being lost.

If you know where you’re headed—really know it, not as a wish but as a direction—you don’t need constant confirmation. You make small corrections. You wait when waiting is required. You move when movement becomes possible again.

Mountains teach endurance.
Navigation teaches trust.

Trust that progress doesn’t always announce itself.
Trust that course-correction matters more than speed.
Trust that losing sight of landmarks doesn’t mean losing direction.

And maybe that’s the deeper meaning behind “never getting lost.” It’s not about always knowing where you are. It’s about knowing who you are aligned with, what you are steering toward, and refusing to mistake temporary drift for permanent failure.

The stars don’t rush you.
The ocean doesn’t explain itself.
Neither guarantees ease.

But if you learn how to orient—to keep the nose of your life pointed toward what matters, adjusting gently, persistently—you don’t actually need certainty.

You just need alignment.

And that, it turns out, is enough to keep going.

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The Sky That Remembered Me - Polynesian Navigation and an Ancient Familiarity

Hawaiʻi has a way of lowering your shoulders before you even realize they were tense.

Coconut trees sway without urgency. The afternoons are warm and unbothered, even in December. Plumeria and hibiscus bloom with the quiet confidence of things that know they belong exactly where they are. There is nothing performative about it. The air smells faintly sweet, faintly saline, like memory.

And then there is the sky.

Not the northern sky I am used to—the one filtered through tall firs and pines, glimpsed in fragments between branches, stars peeking through like shy guests. That sky always feels a little distant, a little observational. This one does not.

Here, the sky opens fully to the ocean. No obstructions. No apology.

Before dawn, standing on a balcony facing the Pacific, I watched Orion—familiar, unmistakable—tilt and sink, star by star, until he disappeared into the water itself. Not fading. Setting. As if the ocean were an equal participant in the choreography. Sirius burned low and bright. Castor and Pollux stood steady, watching. The stars did not feel foreign or exotic. They felt… remembered.

That was the moment something subtle but irreversible shifted.

Polynesian navigation is often described as an ancient maritime skill. That description is technically accurate and profoundly incomplete.

What the navigators of the Pacific developed was not just a method of crossing vast distances of open ocean without instruments. It was an entire way of being oriented in a moving world. They memorized the rising and setting points of stars along the horizon—star houses, not coordinates. They read swells that originated thousands of miles away, invisible causes made legible through pattern and feel. They watched clouds for reflections of land beyond sight. Birds, wind shifts, water color, even the behavior of fish became information.

Nothing was accidental. Nothing was mystical guesswork.

The canoe itself embodied the same philosophy. Lashed together, not nailed—flexible, repairable, responsive. Designed to move with the ocean, not resist it. Strength came from accommodation, not rigidity.

This was not “primitive navigation.” It was precision without domination.

Modern language struggles with this because we are trained to separate astronomy from life, navigation from ethics, engineering from philosophy. Polynesian wayfinding refuses those divisions. The sky is not a backdrop; it is a teacher. The ocean is not an obstacle; it is a collaborator. Knowledge lives in bodies and memory, not just diagrams.

Standing there, watching Orion disappear into the Pacific, I realized why this felt less like learning and more like recognition.

I am Indian. My culture, too, encoded astronomy in story, time in recurrence, and ethics in situational judgment rather than rigid rules. The Mahabharata is not anchored to “once upon a time” but to skies that looked a certain way. Nakshatras were not decorations; they were clocks, seasons, orientation. Knowledge survived because it was lived, spoken, remembered—until colonial systems dismissed it as myth and replaced it with someone else’s certainty.

Seeing Polynesian navigation up close did not feel foreign. It felt like meeting a cousin across an ocean.

What struck me most was this: navigation here was never about conquest. There is no language of “overcoming” the Pacific. Only language of listening, timing, respect, return. The goal was not arrival at all costs, but continuity—of people, of knowledge, of relationship.

In a world that increasingly pretends stability exists if we engineer hard enough, this feels quietly radical.

Perhaps that is why the sky here felt so familiar. Not because I had seen these stars before—but because I had seen this way of knowing before. A way that does not try to pin the universe down, but learns how to move within it without losing itself.

Orion setting into the Pacific was not just beautiful. It was instructive.

It reminded me that navigation is not about knowing exactly where you are.
It is about knowing how to remain oriented when certainty disappears.

And that, it turns out, is not just an ancient maritime skill.
It is a way of living.

On opening a new chapter of my life

It looks like I have not blogged in just over a year, and in my defense there is a big reason for it. I just became a mom. For all those who know me in person also know what a journey I went through to come to this. I posted about my miscarriage before, and there is a whole blog about my infertility and IVF treatments. On the final day (i.e. labor day) I went through a new set of trials because even after going through labor, getting an epidural, I still had to get an emergency c-section because the baby had her umbilical cord wrapped twice round her neck! Anyway, I already knew what a fiesty fighter she is, so she emerged victorious, proving that her name Oindri, meaning thunder aptly suits her.

So now I embarked on this mom-journey. I figured out that feeding and changing diapers can suddenly take up the whole day. I mean, so far, I knew that people have to sacrifice some sleep and that people have to change diapers, but I am failing to calculate how the mere mechanical job of changing diapers can take up so much time! And feeding... by the time she completes one feed, surprisingly, it seems within ten minutes it is time for her next feed! The math is somehow not adding up and I am pretty certain that I am sitting in that nursing chair in her room for around sixteen hours each day.

What does it feel to be a mom? It is still unbelievable. I mean, yes, really, unbelievable! I was just filling up her passport application form, and to fill in my name as the "mother", or seeing my name on her birth certificate as the mother makes my head spin. Like something is wrong there? Are they sure about it? 

Being a mom is an ethereal experience. I am sure the hormones are to blame for part of it, but I am feeling like Nature (or science, because she is an IVF baby) has entrusted in me this huge responsibility of trusting an entire human being in my care. It isn't just sacrificing sleep and waking up several times at night _(those who know me also know how much I love to sleep and that earthquakes or terrible heat, or the fright of an exam have never caused any sleeplessness in me)_, neither is the thought that she is dependent on me for almost everything now, it is the fact that I need to lead my life in a way that inspires her. In order to bring her up right, I need to do the right things in my life. That thought is the one which is challenging me. She would learn everything from me, she would look up to me for advice, watch how I am behaving in difficult times. I can't yell at her when angry and then expect her to stay calm when faced with a difficult situation. I can't sit on the couch all day and then tell her she needs to go play outside. Will it be difficult? Sometimes yes, but since I am already thinking about it, I guess when it comes to really parenting (I mean, she is a little older) then I will be prepared.

So far, she is an amazingly easygoing person with no whining and no fussiness. She went on her first weekend trip to Mt. Rainier and was just perfect. I hope that personality of her will remain along with the sublime strength in her, which has been already apparent in her journey from an embryo to a baby girl!

Kauai Humane Society

With Scout

You surely know how one can check out books from a library, but did you know that you can check out dogs? I call it borrowing some love. 

Kauai is a beautiful island, with unspoiled nature, great hikes through lush green forests, the mighty Pacific Ocean, and it is also home to the Kauai Humane Society. They let you take a dog out on a day-trip to beaches or parks. You need to return them by 5, that's it. When I first heard about it from my co-worker, I thought that was a great idea, so this time when we were in Kauai, we went to see what it is about.

For people who have dogs at home, they know how much those dogs are missed when we are on vacation. To let these people play with dogs for a day greatly makes the vacation a whole lot better. And what does it do for the dogs? They get socialized, a skill very important for them to help get adopted. They also get to come out of their little places and play outside. If they go out on a day trip, they wear their "adopt me" jackets which means other people get to meet them too. And who knows who may have a place in their hearts for which dog? It is of no surprise that a lot of the Humane Society dogs get adopted by visitors.

Scout and Magnolia playing

We got to play with Scout on the first day we were there. Scout is a 9 month old airedale who came to the shelter as a stray. He left front foot was fractured and it healed by itself, but the bone didn't set properly. So she has a funny stride, but that doesn't let her slow down. When we took her out to the yard, first she just ran around, a little shy to come to us. Then within like 5 minutes she came to me when called and soon after sat on my lap. 

The second day we found Scout with her roomie Magnolia. Magnolia is a three-pawed 7-month old pup but she was jumping real high. Scout recognized us from our last visit and while all the other dogs were barking excitedly, Scout gently wagged her tail. That day we took both Scout and Magnolia out to the yard. They chased each other and played a good game of tug-of-war. It was so nice to see some happy doggie time there. This is what happy and healthy dogs do.

It is difficult to not adopt anyone from there, especially when they look up with the trusty, dark brown eyes. As we already have a full house, so it will not be a good idea to get some more. But it is also true that love is the thing that you can give and still have a lot more to give to others. So I'd say that I left a part of me there with Scout, Magnolia, and the rest of them, and also brought back with me a lot of love and trust that they gave me. 

"Mocha'r ghonto" - thoughts on cooking banana florets

I have posted a few times about food in my blog here, but I am not going to post any recipes because I don't want to make this anywhere close to a food blog. I have seen how contents of food blogs are copied from one blog to another, actually word to word, but both (or multiple) authors claiming that her recipe is handed down in her family through generations!! 

Anyway, I have found a lot of joy in re-creating traditional Bengali foods in my kitchen far-away from the rivers and paddy fields of Bengal. There are certain dishes, though, which can be called, in simple language, "advanced". It is like learning the butterfly stroke after you are comfortable with the other three swimming strokes. This week I handled the thing called "mocha". Don't confuse with the coffee stuff, this is what we call banana flowers in Bengali. And heck yes, they are edible.

A whole mocha

This is how a raw whole mocha looks like. The flowers are concealed within layers of purplish firm and smooth skin. As you separate the layers, the florets will be seen. This is the hardest part of cooking this thing. The florets can't just be separated and chopped, they need to be cleaned and sorted individually, by hand. 

Rows of florets

Every floret has one stamen and one small covering along with the petals. That stamen and the covering are not edible. I was wondering who first came up with this. Maybe they cooked it and it tasted bad? Or it was too hard and they couldn't chew or swallow it? Who knows the original reason now? But this method of cleaning and sorting has been passed down through generations in the Bengali kitchens from mother to daughter (or mother-in-law to daughter-in-law). Nowadays we also have YouTube to our rescue.

Before starting the process, we need to rub a little oil on our hands so that the juice doesn't stick or stain them. Traditionally it has always been mustard oil that is used for this purpose, so I chose that. Also, we need to keep a big bowl of turmeric water handy. Once the florets are cleaned and chopped, they are soaked in turmeric water overnight. A little salt is also added to that.

See the big bowl of turmeric water to my left and the small bowl of golden mustard oil to the right.

After an overnight soak, the next morning the whole thing is boiled for like 10-15 minutes before it is ready to be cooked. Generally the other ingredients needed are - lightly fried potato cubes, bengal gram (that is also soaked overnight and boiled later), grated coconut, ghee, daler bori*, and general spices like cumin, dried red chillies, and bright green or red chillies for garnishing. 

The dish has a huge prep work but as all the ingredients are pre-cooked, the actual cooking process is quite easy and fast. It needs a little water to boil all the stuff together and a quick stirring for few minutes. Finally, you can add a teaspoon of ghee for flavor, garnish with some more grated coconut and add a few green or red chilis to make it look good! The best thing is you can serve the dish on one of the purple skins of the mocha itself. 

The finished product!

*PS: Daler bori is a conical shaped thing made out of lentil paste that is dried in the Sun. Dal means lentil. Once dried, those are deep fried till crispy and ground up to add a little extra crunch to this vegetable dish.

Kolkata Metro incident and a retrospective of our culture

Talk to a random Bengali bhadrolok (gentleman) for over five minutes and he will remind you why Kolkata is still considered as the cultural capital of India. You'll hear about Rabindranath, Satyajit Ray, the role of Bengalis in the Indian freedom struggle and will also get a dose of left-liberalism. So when that city shows its ugly side, the shame we feel is twofold. The recent incident at the Kolkata Metro (subway/tube) is one such.

A young couple in their mid-twenties were beaten up by a group of older men because they were "standing too close to each other". Some people said they were hugging, some other witnesses, however, mentioned that the young man kept his hand on his female friend's shoulder trying to shield her from the crowd. That enraged the frustrated older men and just shouting "get a room" or "go to a club" was not enough, so they decided to be the moral police and beat them up.

"Do not express your affection, express your perversion instead" - my friend said it looks like this is the mantra in India now. In a society where rape has become a news that people just skim through, kind of like mass shootings in the US, I think we need to spend some thoughts about how we are bringing up our society, what are we expecting from people?

Kolkata used to boast of the humanity. We heard of foiled kidnap attempts because of local slum dwellers chasing away the kidnappers, we saw an abandoned baby being rescued by local people from a street side dustbin and then numerous families showing interest to adopt her. We knew girls are safe in public, maybe that's the reason I still prefer to take a bus, or metro over a cab while in Kolkata even now. But it is not the same anymore.

Our society on one hand is very progressive, but on the other hand, medieval mentalities still exist. A guy and a girl, if seen in public, are assumed to be a couple. And that means the girl's character is compromised. Parents of girls still proudly say, "my daughter doesn't have a boyfriend" or that "my daughter is so shy, she can't talk to boys properly". But in most of these cases, those girls have relationships that their parents don't know of. I still fail to understand why a healthy relationship is looked down upon. Isn't it normal for a healthy 20-something to physically feel attracted to someone else? But one cannot make out in their house, because you live with your parents and of course the parents should not know. Then the whole thing is done on the sly. You can't even tell your doctor if you are sexually active, because he will tell your parents and judge you. If that is your old family physician, then you'll get a scolding and a lecture at once. Guys are ashamed to buy condoms. Even if they do, they'd have to buy it from stores which are not in their neighborhood. What results from that? Unhealthy relationships and dangerous decisions! 

Coming back to the point of "my daughter doesn't have a boyfriend", parents still take responsibilities for getting their kids married, and arranged marriages still happen. If you send your daughter to a girls' school, then a girls' college, restrict who she can talk to, ask 10,000 questions if a guy calls her and have the whole neighborhood be on watch to see who she is talking to, then how would she ever find a guy she may like? And then she has no idea what to expect in a relationship. Neither would her husband, if he never had a girlfriend or a close friend who is a girl. I can't emphasize enough the reasons of having co-ed schools only. It teaches kids to grow up normally, it opens different perspectives. Now when I look back at my teenage days I see how well brought up were my guy friends in school. We never had to hide the fact that we have got periods when we were with them. We felt safe when they walked us home. No wonder now I see them as great husbands, and some as fathers also. 

In today's world we cannot and should not keep boys and girls separated. It is unhealthy to think of a girl's purity or character, or what. Girls and boys both need to know each other and work together towards a better society, a balanced society devoid of gender roles. The elders should support that, or if they can't then they should just step aside. Their time is over, with their frustration, old narrow mindset, they need to just leave and let the new generation step up.

Learning to Let Go

Earlier this week, on Monday, my beloved feisty firebrand cat, May Kitty crossed the Rainbow Bridge. This is so far my first real encounter with death of a beloved soul. It is true I have seen my grandfather moments after he passed away, but to be honest May Kitty's death has impacted me much more than that. It has even touched me more than my own miscarriage.

I was wondering what is it about a pet's death that affect us so much. I think it is because how ever old they may get, since we take care of them as our kids, we never really sense that age. To us, they still remain our little kids. May was almost 16, which mean more than 80 in human years. So we should really say that she had quite a long life. Her chronic kidney ailment was under treatment but that is what finally gave in. She withdrew from the world on Saturday, but we still tried to get her back. After 2 days of fight at the ICU when she did not respond to any antibiotic or even human dosage of pain killers, we decided to bring her home and let her go in peace. At the hospital however, they said that she wouldn't even make the trip home. Then we decided amidst loads and loads of tears that we have no right to prolong her suffering just because of our selfish needs. We decided to let her go. Lying down on my lap, like she did every evening, she breathed her last. I saw that it was in peace.

It felt like my heart was shattered in pieces. For days afterwards, I literally had this heavy feeling in my chest. That pain is physical. On top of that, with the hormone injections doing their work, I thought I would be a teary mess for days. But I did not. I chose to celebrate life over death.

First of all, in Hindu philosophy, we believe in the immortality of the soul. The soul is such that can't be burned by fire, torn by swords, or blown away by the wind. It is always at peace. So I know May's soul, which theoretically has no bearing with May's mortal body is free now. She left her mortal body like we change from an old set of clothes. We decided to cremate her and scatter her ashes in an apple orchard because we did not want to hold on to the remains of her mortal body through a burial or even keeping the ashes. We need to let her go.

Secondly, we have our other two fur babies to care for. They knew that May has gone and they were depressed. So we kept our normal routine around them and also play with them, be in a good mood so that they pick up on the positivity. It is difficult, but we had to do that.

Thirdly, we also believe in reincarnation. I was telling Arnab that May was in a hurry to leave because she has to be present when my ova are fertilized. She has to come back as my human child :) Who knows, maybe the one who went over the Rainbow Bridge will come back as my Rainbow Baby!