The Humans Defynd Interview
#HumansDefynd #Interview
Editorial comment: Arvind Passey is 25 years old. Well at least his life and style will make you think so. He’s got more energy than the average reader reading this, and he does more exciting stuff than the most exciting guy on your timeline. Time to meet him. 🙂
This interview was first published here.
Q. Who are you, where are you and how did you get here?
Arvind: I am neither a pebble on the sea shore, nor a dream floating around… neither a horde of words waiting to spill out secrets, nor a whiff of some exotic fragrance. I am neither a restless traveller, nor a boulder in the Valley of Flowers.
I am the intensity of a wish, the density of curiosity, the immensity of silence, and the necessity of communication.
I am where I am supposed to be, doing what I was created to do, and to reach here I have taken the path opened only for me.
Q. Other than what you already shared, what do you really like to do?
Arvind: I don’t like sentences that stumble and fall. I don’t like words that stay on and yet say nothing. I don’t like paragraphs that are shamed by pictures clicked by a smartphone. I don’t like stories that snore their way into a cul-de-sac. I don’t like plans and plots that dance like a dervish when they should be chasing a climax. I don’t like to be called anyone other than one who loves to write.
Q. What is your life’s mantra(s) – something that you live by?
Arvind: Accept change… even mantras change with every change in the complexion of moments. I believe that accepting change invariably leads one on to the adventure of new discoveries. Only the fearful and the timid think of change as a disruptor of peace. I know that life changing visions are always on the other side of disruptions… waiting. And so I accept disruptions when they appear and insist on changes that pull me out of my comfort zone.
Q. What is happiness and how do you find it?
Arvind: A tear that washes away remorse. An ache that preserves smiles that no longer exist. A heartbeat that accelerates right into a moment to immortalise it. A cursory touch that gives birth to a new bond. A glance that beckons forever. A whisper that calms the hyperventilating creases on the forehead. There are a million such actions created to awaken happiness and every day I discover at least one. I know not how.
Q. Any fond travel memory from the recent (or not so recent) past?
Arvind: Rain. Cold. A stony path through the forest. A forest on the treacherous slopes of a mountain. One step slope after another. Breathlessness and exhaustion. And then I sight gently rolling contours with a million different colours gently laid over a carpet of green. “The valley of flowers”, I whisper happily. And then I recollect an almost similar feeling when I reached the summit where Budher caves had once protected the Pandavas. The moment is a powerful concoction of joy, elation, triumph, peace, silence, and sublime insights.
Q. In your wildest dreams, where would you ideally be and what would you be doing?
Arvind: I’m always flying with my dreams and turning them into throbbing and pulsating rhymes that carefully stitch together fiction and real fiction because they must remain one if life is to be understood. I do this by the sea shore, up on mountains, within a chattering metropolis, on ground, in the air, under water, with and without friends, and even when I’m awake.
Q. Can you share one (or more) extra (or ordinary) thing / incident about your life which is fairly fascinating?
Arvind:
– Discovering chewing gum art on the Millennium Bridge in London… this post is there on my blog.
– Making it to the top of Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh.
– A dip in the cold sarovar of Hemkund in Uttarakhand.
– Scuba diving in Havelock island.
– Participating in the NDTV-Volvo adventure challenge.
– Winning the Tata Motors-Indiblogger blogging marathon and winning the Tiago.
– Discovering London, Paris, Barcelona, and Amsterdam on foot.
– The Turkish massage after walking in Petra, Jordan throughout the day.
– Clicking pictures of the light box in Sydney.
– Driving a Formula one car on the Sepang circuit in Kuala Lumpur.
– Foot massage inside Wat Pho in Bangkok.
Q. One (or more) book / movie / tv series you think everybody should read / see (and why)?
Arvind:
Book/s
The old man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
This book comes nearest to a real conversation with life. No beating about the bush. No melodrama. Not a single word or moment forced onto the pages.
The review of this book is on my blog.
Movie/s
Gladiator
I remember having made a marketing presentation by threading dialogues from this movie. Powerful words that pierce through space to stay on as tattoos on your sensibility.
TV serial/s
Black Mirror
Technology. Future. Dark. The stories make you shudder and then make you curl up inside your own brain to contemplate.
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The Humans Defynd Interview
The Humans Defynd Interview. Thanks to Prateek Shah
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Arvind Passey
August 2018
