A Year in Pursuit

Compulsive Pursuits Into Quaintness (CPiQ) was started with an initial intent to give vent to “personal” emotions, the kind we have on a daily basis in response to stuff happening around us.  Many intense emotions though very personal to us and quite heartfelt, are nonetheless not too relateable to someone on the outside. The phrase ‘putting oneself in someone else’s shoes’ has been done to death; it is difficult. And to boot, even impossible in the blogging world, where I guess, we search for amazing insights into life and living, not to understand why X is suddenly so happy and certainly, not into why that same X gets dejected at other times. 

I remember how pleasantly astonished I was to learn of a film legend treating a customer service guy with civility, warmth even. That tale though it happened to a person whom I met only once, stayed with me for a long time until I decided to post it as an integral feature of The Original Indian Tobogganist. So I intended CPiQ as a personal monologue (1^st post 'So Dark for April' reflects this) but later, I got inspired by the idea of penning my thoughts about external stuff - if I could relate to the simplicity around me even if second-hand and the profoundness that often accompanies such portraits, many others would too.

So, the last year has been amongst other things, an exploration into the death of an ageing rhino in a sanctuary, a friend rescuing an injured dove, the coolly-perceptive landscape of a cult film, simple but intensely powerful words of a bard weaver. These posts have been interspersed with personal features about my own life when I found a detail quaint, even funny. 

CPiQ is today a year-old baby (I do not count my first post as the beginning) – a baby seeking to precariously strike a balance between being meaningful and playing the fool, between seeing and understanding, and indeed, between pursuing and not pursuing. For in solemn pursuit, the joys of the road being travelled are often lost and the whole escapade turns purposeless. When Steve Tyler croons, “Life’s a journey, not a destination”, the year-old baby sings in complete accompaniment. A Very Happy 1^st Birthday, CPiQ!