Adee Discusses Paris and His Bookmark to Life Worth Living

Yesterday I introduced readers here to New Delhi writer/poet/adman Adee Saini. What caused a connection between us when I first discovered his Delhi Dreams site was the emotive quality of his entries. Sometimes his words brought to mind the famous quote, "Writing is easy; just open a vein and bleed" which has been incorrectly attributed to Hemingway. Here is the rest of my exchange with Adee, plus his Bookmark to Life.

E: Your "Bookmark to Life Worth Living" is especially powerful. You draw attention to World Suicide Prevention Day at the end. It's a subject we generally evade, but is a serious matter in our world today. How did you come to be moved to make people note this issue?

Adee: The 'bookmark to life' was written in reference to a campaign my colleagues in McCann US did to spread awareness about the World Suicide Prevention Day. It was a difficult subject to write about. Though personally I've been untouched by it, it has always hovered in the consciousness as a question as to why or what drives people to commit suicide, what drives them so further down the line that they feel there's no sense in getting back? As I said, I've had difficult times in life, perhaps even moments when I could have contemplated it, but something in me never lets me go there. Perhaps I'm an optimist who wants to get up the next morning and see if anything could be done about the problem at hand. I wrote it because the best response that I could come up with on the topic was in the form of a poem.

E: How did you come to visit Paris? And what impressions did you bring back to India with you?

Adee: Paris? :) Paris was one of the good times in my life. I'd gone to Cannes to attend the first ever "Cannes Health" Lions and was chosen to represent McCann Health, India as a delegate. It was an official trip that I extended into a personal one. Since childhood I've been fascinated with Paris. (And Vienna and Prague.) I'm a romantic by heart and always look towards beauty even in not-so-beautiful situations. Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner has been sort of a talisman for me throughout my life. Whenever I've found the going tough, I've tried to pause and notice something beautiful in the world, in my life, around me. And whenever I've found it, I've also found a way out of the mess. And all said and done, Paris is among the most beautiful cities in the world. Unfortunately I could never synthesize what I brought back from Paris. I had to cut short my trip and rush back home as my father suffered a brain hemorrhage. The initial days after returning were all about his surgery and getting his life back on track so that somewhere I lost Paris and have not been completely able to think about it. As of now, it spells nostalgia, a sense of beauty and gratitude in me.


Bookmark to Life Worth Living

It’s just a bookmark! A simple piece of thick paper, printed replica of some really old Japanese painting. A couple of mornings ago, while rushing out to office, I put it in the book I was going to start and forgot how special it is.

Yes, it’s not just a bookmark. It is my time traveling ticket to Paris. More specifically to the hours when I was happily lost in the labyrinth that The Louvre is.

Traveling in the metro today, I pondered at a pause and used this bookmark to remind me where I’d stopped reading. And from the page I was on, I traveled back in time to my recent France visit, to Cannes, to the few wonderful days I’d spent in Paris.

That is when I realized (and not for the first time) how absolutely important it is to keep a tab on the good moments and memories in one's life. Far too often we focus on the negative, the depressing, the what-is-not-right in our lives and keep missing the little big things that are good, even great.

It is midnight in my corner of the world. Lemme see what can I feel good about from my day so far… sunlight filtering in through the window, my environment-friendly alarm app; giving last night’s leftovers to a stray dog, its joy was infectious; a meeting went well; stumbling upon a new music group and then it leading me to more and more songs that I loved; the bliss of a cup of masala chai; watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; the very fact that I got up this morning ALIVE and that I have a bed to sleep in tonight... life is literally filled to the brim with blessings worth treasuring.

And yes, I know that life is full of troubles and trials. Yours is, mine is as well. That said, it doesn’t take much to keep the good memories closer to our heart… what we need to do is develop a habit, a strong will to change how we look at life. There IS a silver lining to every dark cloud we face, sometimes the most negative experiences are an act of grace, life just tells us again and again to have faith… because someday we’ll look back at it all and wonder, how in the world we made it so far.

So yes, as the bookmark monkeys show, hang in there and please start bookmarking the little moments you’ll treasure later on in life. Because it is these memories that make life what it is…worth living.

It’s time we speak out and raise awareness about suicide and its prevention. To honor the lives lost to this mental health issue, McCann Torre Lazur invites you to tag your images, videos, or words that represent the beauty and meaning of life with #worthliving on September 10th, World Suicide Prevention Day.

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Thank you, Adee. Visit Adee's Delhi Dreams and bookmark it. 

A Visit with New Dehli Poet/Writer Adee

Adee's Study Table

Born in New Delhi, India in 1980 Adee Saini is a retired pessimist (still) living in New Delhi. I'm not quite sure which social media site brought us in touch with one another, but he has been blogging and sharing his poems, impressions and observations online even longer than I (who began this blog in 2007.)

He holds an honors degree in English Literature from the University of Delhi and pays the bills by means of a career in advertising. On his Delhi Dreams blog he describes himself this way: His interests are universal, and include: living, eating, sleeping and when not sleeping, daydreaming. Other abiding interests include reading, writing, street photography, newspaper editorials, watching the moon and planning trekking trips that never materialize. 

Though Adee doesn't post daily he does post thoughtfully, and candidly. One of the themes that he has addressed directly and forcefully in the past is the problem of crimes against women, especially the problem rape in Delhi. We've been sharing our thoughts from time to time for perhaps as many as five years.

E: What do you do for a living? At one time you said you were in advertising.
Adee: Yes, you remember right, I'm a Creative Director-copy at McCann Health, New Delhi, India. If I remember correctly, you also have a background in advertising, right? That makes two things in common for us, advertising and a love of art, particularly words.

E: Indeed. How did you come to take an interest in writing?
Adee: I was always a reader first, and actually never thought of becoming a writer. I think the biggest influence on me would be my father as he encouraged in me a love for words quite early in life. And that included books, magazines, newspapers, and also old Hindi film song lyrics! So right from the age of around 8 years or so, I was subscribing to my own magazines within the household budget. The Sunday newspaper supplements were mine to cut and paste and by around 12 years of age I was into reading serious stuff like classics of Indian literature. That said, I always loved images and drew a lot in my school years. In fact my first job in the advertising industry was also as an art person. It was only by chance that I shifted to being a copywriter and realized I could express myself through writing as well. Now it’s been around than ten years that I've kept my love with copywriting and writing intact.

E: What is your background? How old are you and where are you from originally?
Adee: As for background, ummm I’m a Delhiite, born and brought up in New Delhi, the Indian capitol. I'm a literature student with a degree in English literature. I've stumbled across different types of jobs -- operating printing presses, teaching graphic designing, customer care -- before arriving at some sort of steadiness within the advertising industry ... though to be true, even within its closed sphere I managed to be an art person, an account management person and then a writer. Even now I sometimes think that I could have been better suited for a management job more than a creative responsibility. In the heart of my heart, I want to be a traveling storyteller, working for an organization like the National Geographic or Lonely Planet. But after a decade of advertising and nearing 35 years of age, I'm not very sure of that kind of leap anymore.

E: There is something beautiful and painful in the poems you write. Can you talk about this for me? Adee: Yes, I agree with the thought that pain or sadness makes us look at life's gifts more keenly. Only a person who has traveled through the desert knows the importance of water. My poems come from my life. It has been a difficult one but has had its moments of love and joy and calm. As of now, I'm not completely bitter about it. :) Yes, if given a chance, I would wish some events to be changed, but more or less I'm okay with where I am.

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that kind of day, that kind of love
“All my life I have loved in vain
the things I didn’t learn.” -Yehuda Amichai

some days you search for the meaning of not only life or death or existence or purpose but of everything, and then you come across one illuminated verse of poetry, one line that burns and brands your heart for life. this is that kind of day, this above, is that kind of love. 
9-12-14
Delhi Dreams

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This conversation will be continued tomorrow or Wednesday.

In Moments Like These

What a fascinating world we live in today. Walt Disney got it right when he shared with us that (sweet, but now tiresome) little tune, "It's a small world after all" at the New York World's Fair in 1964-64. The ever expanding expanding Internet network of networks only proves it more every day.

One of my Twitter followers posted a link to their blog, which originates in India, called Delhi Dreams. What interests me is how one can visit a foreign land and find a heart and mind that is so engaged, so like one's own in that it travels down the same paths, stimulated by human experience. His Twitter profile states: an advertising writer, poet and impromptu dreamweaver :)

Ha! I could say the same about myself and get away with it.

I suppose it must be what school teachers experience when they get a new batch of students in the fall, not knowing what to expect but -- based on experience -- knowing that that there will be unexpected surprises.

This is the beginning of Adee's blog entry titled In Moments Like These. I love the photo at the top of his blog, and have returned to it several times for a fresh look at one man's observations from the other side of the world.

In Moments Like These

i wrote this in my diary, this Saturday morning. haven't edited it much :)

it is a grey Saturday morning. there is a faint drizzle going on outside for the past two hours or so. i'm waiting for her at home and we've a lot planned up for today.

Share something of yourself with someone new today!