Blinded...

The good thing about going back home late from office is that you get a lot of breathing space, a lot of walking space - in the trains, on the roads, on the railway platform, everywhere. That Friday evening though, things were a little different. The normal quiet that beseeches the railway platform in the late night hours was conspicuously missing from the Guindy Railway Station.

My eight months stay in this city had been enough to make me feel at home among people who conversed in a language I had failed to get to terms with, my efforts to learn it notwithstanding. The chirp and the enthusiasm of the youth would make you feel as if it was a large group returning from a picnic. There was no sign of the long and tiring day at office on any face, let alone the hot and humid Chennai weather. Maybe everyone was excited about the weekend that was to follow, about the ensuing India-Australia Twenty- Twenty International. There were families too at the station; little kids fussing around with their grandparents, fathers and mothers trying to make their few months olds sleep in the cuddle of their arms, newly wed couples trying to enjoy every one of those few precious moments they got to spend together. It seemed more like a party, than a wait for a local that hadn’t arrived for quite sometime now.

It is then when the central character of my story plundered into the party, uninvited, unnoticed and maybe even unwanted. The tattered clothes, the not so slight stoop, the limp in his walk definitely didn’t make you want to look at him again. I assumed the stick he was using, was to keep him on his feet. But there was more to it. The central character hadn’t been blessed with eyes that saw. The people on the platform were thoughtful enough to make way for the old man as he made his way to, only he and god know where. I thought about the inane crowd in Mumbai that just wouldn’t care to do so. It was then that I noticed, that something was going wrong. The old man seemed to have lost his way and was not moving along the platform. Rather, he seemed to be heading straight for its edge, towards the tracks. But the people around him seemed to be least concerned about what was happening. The party was going on and everybody seemed to be on a high. The uninvited guest’s stick was in his right hand, and he was slowly slipping towards the tracks on his left. I could see the lights of the much-awaited local train about half a kilometer in the distance. I didn’t feel like relying on the goodwill of the people around the man and decided to start running. He was a good 25 meters away from me. I rushed towards him and pulled him away from the edge of the platform. What he hurled at me was in Tamil; I hope it was a rude thank you. The man walked on, the crowd didn’t. The people around him were staring at the person who had just run in from nowhere. I stared back. A few of the people looked away, maybe feeling guilty. But a few others continued to stare; it was a cold steely stare. They must be the people who wouldn’t mind wiping dust off the leather of their shoes with their hands, before they enter their boss’s room but would definitely not want to touch a dirty, blind, old cripple who moved around with a bowl in one hand and a stick in another. I guess they wanted to avoid the late night bath they’d have had to take for touching the ‘one who dare not be touched’. I just hope those eyes I was looking into, were not those of the resurgent India that we all are so proud about.


My roommates with whom I share the talks I would have loved to, with my soul mate viewed the whole incident in different lights. One just shook his head and went out of the room. The other retorted, “And our cricket board president says that India is not a racist country. The caste system we have in our country and the narrow mindedness that still persists in the minds of our so called educated community is worse than the apartheid and similar social stigmas in the rest of the world.”
The best was to come from my third friend. He said, “You missed out on a byline, my friend. You could have shot the whole incident and later asked the people around, why they didn’t care to help. They win Pulitzers for covering such exclusive stories, live. A big prize at a small price - One Life.”

Facts

Facts, how much ever they may hurt, are best when they are accepted as facts and not theories.

The ones who love you will never need to tell you that they do. And the ones, who don't, never will, no matter how many times you hear them say so; in your head, in your dreams...



One job pays you a hundred dollars to pull the trigger; the other, a cent to carry the dying to the doctor. I guess you would still choose the latter...
If hundred were to be made a million, and you were to win a Nobel for pulling the trigger, what would you have done?
Do we really know what we want, what we want to do?
And if yes, how often do we do, what we want to?

Who is driving this economy?
The one who is speeding along the flyover, in his new C Class, or the one who is sitting under it. The one who wants one more flyover to come up, not because he doesn't like to see the elegant Mercedes get caught up in traffic, but because it really is easy to buy his kids, two meals a day, when there is a lot of work at hand....
I guess this must be the inclusive growth that every single industrialist in India so proudly announces that his company upholds....

I am not surprised that the capitalism is what the rich, the famous, the learned uphold, because that is what gets you a hundred dollars for a cent. And then you can always boast about all the good that you have done, by organizing a lavish luncheon for the famous, the elite, the media and release a glossy report on Corporate Social Opportunity, oops, Corporate Social Responsibility, whatsoever you may call it, sirs.

From those who matter to those who matter more.
From those who make the difference, to those who feel the difference, those who bear the difference.
From those who feed on the difference, to those who have to, those who are made to live with the difference.
Those, who miss a meal because of the difference.

But I guess just yapping never serves the point; you got to do something about it. It’s all very good to write a touching story about the people everyone sees every other day, make a few eyes swell, and feel bad about the gap that is widening. But can just writing about things help? Am I really doing what I want to? Are we?

I am a journalist, a business correspondent. Today I write, have to write about people who matter, people who make the difference. I am not happy about it. I hope that someday I will write about, someday I will write for, the ones who matter a little more.

I quit...

It was the 6th of December. I was fiddling with the pen in my hand. I was confused in my head, not sure whether the drastic measure that I was going to opt for, called for a rethink. All kinds of advices were pouring in, from everyone who cared for me. I wasn't too sure what to take note of and what to discard.
That's when I came upon this piece of shit I had scribbled, rather typed, during my early days (first couple of weeks) in TCS, Chennai. It seemed a real long time since then, and things definitely hadn't got any better...



'The worst times are those when you have all the time in the world at your disposal, you have a sea full of ideas floating in your head, but when you sit down to pen them down, er, well in modern terminologies, to type them down, the words just seem to have drowned in that sea of thoughts and nothing seems to surface to your fingertips. At this moment in time, I am face to face with one of those times. I, as per the speculations and au contraire to all my aspirations am an employee of TCS. Well, of the 22 years of sunrises that I have managed to miss to wake up to, not one of them has been, dreaming about sitting in an air conditioned room, working on a machine that almost thinks, talking to some part of it in a language that my heart fails and doesn’t care to understand and my head just dares to; and sitting surrounded by men and women who are least considerate about my existence and who are mocking it by talking in a language my head just can’t understand and my heart yearns to. My time’s up. No, don’t rush to dial 911, I meant, my time at work is up. It’s past 6 pm and there’s no one who can pin me down to this seat which is so bored of me. No, it won’t prick my conscience either if I pick my bag and just walk out of this office. But there’s a small problem. There’s no place my feet can walk to, both where they are welcome and not so reluctant to go to. I am feeling like a guy who is stranded in the middle of an ocean, who definitely knows how to swim, but can't see one solid thing apart from the moon and the stars, he can swim up to. What do I do? Conserve every ounce of energy I got; staring at the stars, lying in wait, for one of them to fall , lying in wait for someone to rescue me from the middle of nowhere...
Or do I swim in which so ever direction my heart takes me. I maybe heading in a direction away from the shore, I may get so tired swimming, that I may not last till someone finally finds me.
What do I do?'


Sometimes words that seem nothing more than insane babble at one point of time, start making a lot of sense at some other point of time. Words that never were written to mean a thing. Words, that when read, make everything clear, at some other point in time.
Guess, everything makes sense, when the head speaks the language of the heart.

By the way, on the 6th of December, 2007 I chose to swim. Don't know where to, don’t know what for, but away from the middle of nowhere....

He once walked on earth...

From the drawing rooms of a few flamboyant politicians, to the heart of a farmer of Champaran ; who had never enjoyed the luxury to taste two meals for decades, who was forced to grow indigo for his profit seeking British landlords; this man took the war for independence, to the battlefields where brute met truth.

It was not a war against the British rule, never was. It was a war against everything that was unjust, against, even the form of war which brought justice in an unjust way. It was a war against the demons we all have in our heads. Those demons, that make us human, those, that make us so inhuman.

The war that this man waged not only brought freedom to us, it also explained to the 350 million of this land, what freedom meant. It definitely did, that there was more to freedom than unfurling a different flag. Freedom never could have meant the right to set the Chauri-Chaura police station on fire in lieu of the Amritsar massacre. An eye for an eye, seldom does not maketh the whole world blind. What separates this man from many contemporaries, was his decision to call off the non-cooperation movement when the entire nation was on the move…When the entire nation was aroused…

He felt, it was not ready, yet to appear for the final exam. It had to sit down and take a 20 year long course in ahimsa, in communal harmony, in equality of women and men, in equality of men and women of all castes, in swadeshi.It had to understand that independence brought with it the great responsibility to see right from wrong, and, to stick to it through thick and thin.

The nation, parts of it definitely, still did burn, when it finally was time to unfurl, the crescent and the tricolour, on consecutive days; and this frail stick, clad in khaadi, had to go east, to water the fire when all eyes were on the red fort; at that stroke of midnight.

The exams were over, or had they just begun?

Free India, too could not digest, him eating all his meals, and the old man had to fast, once again, unto death, to give his 35 crore sons and daughters, a crash course in hindu-muslim brother/sisterhood. The idea of peace, harmony, satya , and ahimsa has always found it hard to make way through the thick skins of so many of us. When it was time to go, he knew, his job was not done, there were a lots who needed to undergo a few more crash courses in ideologies and principles, India cannot do without. “Over to you, ‘HEY RAM’”, was all we could here him say, as he left in the hurry, that he always was in.

We do remember him once in a while by celebrating his principles and ideologies by raking up issues like ‘The Ram Janm Bhoomi’ , ‘The Godra Train massacre’, ‘The Ram something something Setu’

Nonetheless, we are a lucky lot. We’ve got a father we can always look upto....if not in our moments of reflection, atleast on our currency notes, we hold in such high esteem...Long live Mahatma, the WALKER.

A moment that came and....went

It’s very strange how you wake up in the morning; completely unaware of what the day holds in store for you and for once in a yellow sun, least concerned about it too; and then when it finally does unfold, as it does, it catches you completely off guard, and time takes you for a ride through heaven and, by the time it sinks in, that you have had one of the best days of your life; a day you are bound to remember for all your days to come, a day you are going to relive in your memory for a lifetime; it is night. The joyride is over. It was like that pleasant shower of rain you had been waiting for, all along, in this desert and that took you totally off guard, and by the time you could come back to your senses and stretch out your palms wide to collect a few extra handfuls of that precious water…the clouds, those lovely grey clouds your eyes longed to see, have been blown away by the mighty winds to lands unknown, who are as thirsty as the land you stand on, or maybe even more.
It is very strange how, one moment you are brooding if it's right to even consider yourself lucky to be born, and the very next moment you are sure that you are born to be lucky. It takes just one moment, for time to redeem your faith in your destiny. And this moment lingers in the corridors of your memory when everything else has departed, or has faded away under the dust of time, that seems to settle on it in growing magnitude with every passing moment.
That moment did not announce its arrival or make a pompous entry like the many other moments that do, but can never stand the test of time. It just sneaked in from a small window somewhere and you did not even see it as it entered. There was so much chaos in your head. You were not in your senses to notice it. Neither did it hang around for very long. But for the little time that it did, it brought heaven to you. And you weren’t even sure if it was for real. You kept watching transfixed, sure that like those many hollow times that had preceded this, this too will just play with your senses and then disappear into nothingness; leaving you, so empty, so disheartened and mocking the very foundations of the tower of hope you erected in your heart.
But it did not, it stayed not for long; but for the time that it did, it made an imprint on your soul that is there to last. The ball went up in the air.From what you had seen in the times before, you were so sure that it will land in those stands you wished you were in. You could feel something like a dagger run through that tower. That’s when the ball landed safely into the hands of a fielder, and...and, India had won the world cup. You could not believe what you had just seen. You climbed on top of the chair you were sitting on and started screaming harder than your lungs permitted you to. The celebrations followed. There was a lot of noise. This was to welcome the moment everyone was going to cherish for a long time. But, just as it had come uninvited, it sneaked out quietly; out of a backdoor somewhere; leaving you feeling happy and elated. It had done its job. It had instilled the hope in you, the hope you will need to hold on to, the hope you will have to hang on to, the next time the ball will go up in the air…

And for an age of mornings that come, you welcome every one of them with your eyes wide open, with your jaws and your fists clenched firm….sure, that today is going to be like that moment, like that moment you once lived. Maybe today, you are going to get to visit heaven one more time... the way you did, when India won the world cup….

Without you…

With or without you, I told myself, I will continue to go strong..
With or without you, I consoled myself, my life, still will keep moving on…

It’s been a few months since those days now, oh don’t they feel like ages…
I guess, once you get into it, life flips very fast, through its pages…

I promise you, there hasn’t been one meal, that has ever tasted less better, just because you aren’t around…
I promise you, there hasn’t been one rain, that has ever smelt less sweeter, every single time it first hits the ground…

No, I don’t even feel your absence when I travel alone all day long…
Anyways when with you, only that boring silence was my favorite song…

Today, when someone talked about you, I couldn’t recall your face…
C’mon, there ain't no guilt, I am happy, my brain knows what part of the past it can afford to erase...

In this rare moment, when, for a change, I have got nothing else to do…
I decide to turn back, one last time, and look back at the past, that I painted with you.

It seems so hazy... it seems so distant…
I just can’t identify with it, at this instant…

With, not without you, there was so much pain…
I can see a face lose itself in agony and disdain…

I have got a sprain in my neck, can’t keep looking back for too long…
From the little that I just saw, I know, I am better off looking straight and moving on..

As I bid my last adieu to those years, those days, those moments that are too heavy too treasure…
I admit they were a necessity, maybe not in such a large measure….

To avoid the stumbling, the fall and the bruises, as I get onto the fast lane;
To know the steps, from the stones....{sigh ;-) }

I just need to glance back into the memory lane……

Missing the bus...

нäzä®Ö'ñ kнwäнi§н£'ñ äi§i .. ki нä® kнwäнi§н ρ£ dµм ñikl£ ..BäнÖт ñikl£ м£®£ ä®мääñ l£kiñ ρнi® bнi käм ñikl£....

It’s been a long day…and you know it’s gonna be a long way back home…It’s been raining right since you hit the road…You have always loved the rains…But today the drops seem to be coming down to get you…and they seem so cold….they never felt this way…..Maybe it’s the rain….maybe it’s you…but something doesn’t feel right…either on the outside…or somewhere within…you ain’t sure where….

There are so many people at the bus stop…there always are so many people everywhere…It’s almost impossible to find your space in this space that you manage to get….It’s 15 minutes now and the bus hasn’t turned up as of yet…you see the people around you getting frustrated...... and you feel proud about the fact that you are a patient one…always have been….or have had to be…… have been forced to be…..lol….you don’t want to get into the details…..

You can see an empty 17E bus in the distance.This one will drop you just outside your building.You feel your lips broadening up.Time to get lucky….You’ve always had to change buses while going back home.This bus never did care to come when you were around.Today, surely feels different now……There’s heavy traffic and the bus seems to be caught up in it, some 20 metres from the bus stop.The driver is honking like a kid getting late for his exam, waiting for his dad to get his tie knotted and get into the car. You ain’t sure if it is for the people at the stop to come and get in or for the vehicles ahead to move on…..The people around you are rushing towards the bus….you decide not to follow them….the bus will stop at the stop anyways…..you can see a few like minded people around you holding ground and your confidence level goes up…..The signal ahead of the stop turns green…the traffic disperses…..the bus picks up speed……..and doesn’t slow down at the stop…Bad miss….It’s raining heavily again…

It’s 20 minutes now since you last saw that bus… …and another one hasn’t turned up since then….. they never take so much time every day …the crowd is thickening up ….. ……that’s when you see the 17D bus, the one you unhesitatingly take everyday…..come fully loaded with passengers…..it’s a little more crowded than it normally is….you should manage to find a footing anyways…….you see everybody rush towards the bus…..you start thinking about the one you managed to miss……and your heart doesn’t want to get into this bus filled wid wet clothes…….you decide that the next bus should come in quick since this one took a long time…….and you see this bus off too…..this time with no one on your side……The rain just doesn’t seem to stop…..

Your presumptions were wrong…..the next bus didn’t follow up the filled one as you thought it will….It’s been more than an hour at the bus stop now……That’s when you see a 17D rushing in from the distance….It’s a little more filled than the one you let go….but you don’t give a damn…you just wanna take a bus and go home….But this one doesn’t decide to stop for the only passenger at the stop…..The driver is more interested in beating the green signal just ahead of the bus stop he is about to miss……You can’t believe this….you run after the bus……you just don’t want to miss this one…..you keep running……onto a flyover and down it….but the bus never slows down…but you have to……your legs ain’t used to keeping up with such high speeds……The rain is pouring into your eyes…… You stop….watching the bus fade away in the distance…....you ain’t sure whether you should walk over to the next bus stop or the previous one….you are in the middle of nowhere…..you turn back coz you ain’t sure how much further down the road the next bus stop might be……and that’s when you see an empty 17E zoom past you and throw up lots of muddy water onto your face as its wheels gush into the puddle, the rains homed into…..It’s not raining anymore….but your eyes don’t seem to feel to difference……

You take an auto to the nearest pub….so much for saving money for the day….lol

Moral of the story : The next bus is never gonna be as nice as the one you managed to
miss…But you might as well take it……coz what’s gone never
returns….and what you are about to let go, for something better, is
what you’ll end up missing sometime later for sure……

P.S.: You can afford to miss a bus now, only if you have got the cash to pay up for an auto

later...lol

LIFE...

I guess there always are times in a life when you feel that every moment needs to be cashed in......You know that nothing has changed, you still are the same race horse, who is nurtured, groomed, fed the best oats to run the race of his life, to run the race he never wanted to...to live a life that you can do without... And it is it at these times when you wonder if there's any point in taking a step forward... knowing that you will have to take two back, to keep abreast with the world... It is at these times that somewhere in the horizons you get a glimpse of a strangled life...of a life that seems chained, that just wants to free itself from the shackles and run away to some Never... Neverland with you at its heels....when you hurry to lay your eyes on it, the life's gone....the light has faded....it's dark again.....you gallop frantically knowing that you have to get to it....get to it, before you lose the ability to run....get to it before it gives up and succumbs to the dogmas of the world and joins the line of followers....get to it before the spirit in that life departs in search of another non-conformist....another maverick who's got the feet to run away, the arms to break the shackles and the heart to love the one thing that can't be replaced by any society, any religion, any culture......................LIFE.

You run...... this time it is no race.... you aren't running against anybody.... you are running against time.... You won't win no accolades.... no honours.... you will just be face to face and awarded the one thing the world does not seem to care for anymore..... It has been there all along and it will be there even if we won't run for it with our hearts out... Where can it go?... It's been there all along, shackled, chained, but that is to keep it in control, to keep it from going off the track, off the road that we all are walking on...........................LIFE.

We all are walking on this one straight road, placing our feet in the footprints laid since ages. The footprints become more prominent with every person who decides to ensure that his feet don't disturb the pattern.... laying every step on a footprint wins you the riches, the honours, the race.... the footprints now are so deep.... so rigid... it almost seems impossible to walk the untrodden path.... But you are running, running towards life.... running not on any set patterns, not for any set goals, you are running to get to it before the spirit departs.... A racehorse is now a warhorse.... It'll fight the world trying to tame it..... It'll gallop down the untrodden path.... into the unseen darkness, towards an unknown destination ..... with an unheard of desire..... Its only hope is that speck of light.....................LIFE.

Score of ZERO

Wasn't it just like any other ordinary day, I had in my life. Maybe it was. But if it was, then why do I chance to think of it, think about it; every time i chance to think...

It was a Sunday evening. I was running away from a wedding. No, I wasn't the groom.It was my dad's cousin's son's wedding. I boarded the train at Bombay Central. The rains had drenched my clothes, my body, my soles. But I loved them. I felt they purified something deep within me, something that never got cleaned otherwise. Something called soul. There weren't many passengers. I grabbed myself a window seat. That's when I saw you. You were playing with the drops that were pushed in through the window by the winds. You were all wet. You looked, well, to say the least, some superlative form of beautiful. I looked away. I didn't want you to feel I was eyeing you. I pretended to stare out of the window.The raindrops were beating on the windoow sill and the winds were pushing them in. The sun's last rays were peeking in through the clouds, through the rains, through the window. Everything seemed so beautiful. I wasn't conscious of your presence anymore. I guess, for a few moments, I even forgot that there was a beautiful girl sitting just opposite to me. That is when a gush of wind came in and threw up a mug full of water onto my face. I turned my face away and chanced to glance at you...again. You seemed to be enjoying the rains just as much as I did. That innocent twinkle in your eyes everytime a drop beat onto your skin, set a lot of bells ringing in my heart. I loved that shadow your hair cast on your face as the final sunrays of the day tried to peek through them into your face. I looked away. You were so beautiful, that I started to wonder if I had ever seen anything as lovely as your face.
The rains seem to have got heavy and I could feel in my heart that both of us were loving it. I can still remember, the way you frowned when some old lady asked you to pull down the window. You looked like that little girl whose favorite doll was being snatched away from her. I guess, she was scared she'd get wet...hehe. That is when, I, your knight in shining armour, quipped back, "Aunty, it's not even a drizzle, and the clouds, too are dispersing." She was not convinced, but that was enough to shut her up for some time. I can still remember the way you smiled when I said that. You seemed to be staring at me and for the first time in my life, I was staring into the eyes of a girl. They were so pure, so innocent, so gentle. There was no doubt, no worry, no pain, no suspicion in them. I felt, they allowed me to peek right into your soul and I thought they saw mine too. I felt like I was dancing with the clouds, on the tune of the wind, on the beats of the rain, with you. I wanted you to keep staring at me, that way, for the rest of my life. No, I didn't feel like talking to you. I guess, there was no need to. You already knew everything about me and I, everything about you, or so I thought. I had lost all sense of time and place. I could see, nothing, but your eyes. I could feel, nothing, but your gaze. I just wanted time to stop and that moment to last for eternity.
A lady, I guess, she must be your mother, asked you to get up. Your station was about to come. You got up, lost your balance and almost fell on me. You grabbed my shirt for support. I held you to help you and that is when I saw it. You were not looking at me. You were staring right through my face, through my eyes, into those dead walls, behind me. Your mother helped you get off the train and you walked away, with the help of that stick, she gave you. I kept staring at you as you faded away into the distance, out of the station, out of my life.
I was so wet. My body had gone numb. But I could feel something warm roll down my cheeks, must be tears. Something was rushing into my head, from my heart, must be blood. Something felt so empty, that my entire body wanted to collapse right into it, must be my soul.

Hey, it's almost a decade since that day now. Even today, when I travel by the locals of Mumbai, I expect to see you by some window. The only sad part is, I can't travel by the Ladies Compartment anymore. You see, I am a grown up now, with a not so fully grown beard, and a moustache. They just won't let me in there anymore.
You know what, I can't remember your face anymore. No, I can't remember any detail. I guess, I wouldn't recognise you even if I saw you.
I have been in love a couple of times, since that evening. I still am not sure, what this word means. The Oxford Dictionary meaning of love that appeals the most to me, is 'score of zero' in the game called life. I have come to believe, that one can fall in love, but never fail in it.
No, I didn't love your body.
I didn't love your soul.
I loved the way those eyes of yours made me feel.
Those eyes, that never saw me.
Those eyes, that never could...

The Cut that never was....

On the day, I was to leave my college, V.N.I.T...while packing up my luggage, I found a few crumbled pages in a shelf... I had to remove a lot of cobwebs and really strain my eyes to make out what was written... The shaky handwriting indicated a strong influence of alcohol, almost 5 - 6 pegs... and my memory and the handwriting prevent me from claiming this article to be my own.......

I woke up. I brushed my teeth. I had my breakfast. I went to the loo. I took a bath. Iwas five minutes late. I raced my cycle to the department. I was embarassed to be late. I made a mental note to be on time for the lectures from tomorrow. But, Halo! Wait. Today is my last day in this college...This is my last day in this world...
I am sitting on the last bench, I have a blade in my left hand. I make a deep cut in my right wrist, I am a lefty after all, lol. I can sense blood gushing out from the cut in my viens. I feel no anguish, no pain, no remorse...
"Last bench, are you paying attention?" It was not a blade after all... It was a pen. It was not a cut... It was a blue mark I had managed to make on my wrist. "Yes ma'm..." "Did you calculate the maximum permissible stress?" "No Ma'm, I forgot to get my calculator." "Sit down and pay attention." "O.K. ma'm." There was a pain, an anguish, a remorse...
I lowered my head and stared at the gray of my desk as I had every single day, every single period, every single moment.
"Chiru, did you do the assignment?" "What...no, I was going to copy Hari's, but then, it was too long..." I was gonna cut my wrist... but then something went wrong....That's life.
Life - What is life? A quest for monotonity?... A journey without a destination?... A test for which there are no marks?... A race with no finish line?...
Or is it a small child's smile when he gets a 25 paise parle toffee wrapped in red?...Is it a sprint in which you run so hard that at the end of it there is sweat in your eyes, that they mistake for tears?Your heart thumps so hard, that you wonder how'd it feel if it were to tear apart the walls of your ribcage, cut through the flesh and embrace the lovely air that has to pass the tests of the tracheas and lungs, alter its nature and composition before it can be one with the heart... And they'd think it is a heart attack...Or is it a turmoil wherein you dig a trench so deep that you can never come out of it?No light can chase you there...no sound can penetrate so deep...They think you are gone and shovel back the mud in the dent that you carved. You can feel mud in every pore of your skin...There is no air to breathe...You are breathing the clay that you played with and made mud balls out of, mud balls you threw on your grand dad...You can't move...You don't want to move...You can't breathe...You don't want to breathe...You lie in wait till another crazy fool decides to dig out the earth in search for the purpose of life...in her search for...she doesn't know what.
"Chutiye, kitna sota hai...Darwaza khol...Aaj nashte mein bhutta mil raha hai" I open my eyes, unlatch the door..."Hi"..."Jaldi jaa...6:00 baj gae hai." I rush downstairs to get my bhutta...The cart is gone...I realise I am not hungry...It's not my stomach...It's not my tongue...It's my heart...It's my pain...I recognise nothing but the pain I have received from you...It does not hurt me to think that I loved you...It hurts me to realise that I'd never love again...I'd never smile at a prank again...I'd never smile at a kiss, a hug, a victory...again...It's only a memory, a dream that can rekindle my spirit...that can make me experience the joy that life begets to us humans...The question is...Can I live in this dreamed of world for eternity...Can a second of my past, make me go on for 6-7 decades to come?...This is the one question which does not have no answer in an I.S. Code...This is the one question mark which asserts my life to be nothing more than a rhetoric....
"Chiru, I am feeling damn frustrated, care for a drink?"
"O.K."
And here I am...prostrate...at your mercy...No!...At the mercy of your memory...at the mercy of a dream in which you may care to pass a measely smile for a dimwit...or...you may not...and if you don't...my propensity 'd force me to resolve to carry a blade to class tomorrow...but the eternal craven freak that I am...I won't...and another day would pass in remorse of the cut that I could have made...that I could not...that I did not...And then.... one fine day.... I'd be the grand dad of another red-blooded maniac who'd throw mud balls at me...and I'd be free when my heart breaks free of these iron...these concrete...these civil walls...and they'd say it was a heart attack...They'd never know that, for an eternity, he craved for his heart to break free of these shackles... His heart attacked...His heart failed...But, it freed him of the eternal jinx bestowed upon him...they called it LOVE...lol

Memories

They form, a never ending, never relenting fog.........
They block all the arteries, close to heart................
They pull, from the finish line, back to the start.....

For a moment, it felt, as if they were gone.........
But, they keep coming back, as if they belong........
Once again,it seems, as if there's no point in going on....

Everytime they come, they are so innocent, almost bring a smile....
And then an emptiness, for the rest of the mile..................
A moment of nostalgia, an eternity of turmoil.................

The desire to start on a clean slate, no marks of the past.......
To break bonds with the yesterdays,that nothing should last...............
To feel no hunger in the night, for the morning's fast............
To leave them all lurking far behind, to move so fast............

They keep coming back, like the little child's fever.........
Can't they just leave, once and forever............
May hate them arrows, but gotta keep them, if there's a quiver........
Maynot want to, but the home must give them all shelter..........

These guests of honour will come uninvited ,will stay, till they please.........
They will dirty the house, but one'll have to smile everytime they 'SAY CHEESE'.................
They need no introduction, you have to know them, some call them ghosts of the past.......................
...........some.........................................memories

Science...is it overrated?

I wrote this for some essay competition ... else I 'd never dwell upon such a serious topic....

Why are we the humans so proud to be what we are?

What are we but skin and bones?What are we but flesh and blood?What are we but one of the many mortal species that come and go?What is it that sets us apart from the rest?

The answer to this is that somewhere deep within each one of us there is a grain called science embedded very firmly.There is a flame that maybe short of oxygen, that apparently seems to be dying but is definitely there,this flame is the spirit to fathom into untroubled waters,to risk everything in search of something not even thought of.

What is this 'science', why has it gained such mammoth proportions in our lives that this very age is being termed as the age of 'science'?

Science is nothing but the quest for truth........the desire to unravel the mysteries of nature, to solve the puzzles of life, to systematically define the obscure events that occur around us.

Science is 'logic'....It is a systematic method to approach complex problems.....to approach life.......A 5 year old kid who sits down in a puddle of mud on a rainy day and finally figures out how to tie his shoe lace is a scientist......A sweeper who discovers the angle at which the broomstick should be held for best results is a good student of science. A mother who discovers the way her child should be held so that it has the soundest of sleeps is being scientific..

Science is 'truth'......What makes a human, human is the fact that he thinks.....Science has got its own competitors claiming to be better and more useful fields of human intellectual activity...namely art,philosophy and religion.......'Art' is guileless and beautiful...it claims to be nothing but an illusion ...'Philosophy ' is not opposed to science, rather it behaves as if it were a science.....it uses the same logical reasoning just that it sometimes claims that the answer to everything lies in one philosophy and gets rigid..

'Religion' is the sweet sugar coated candy that is served to minds seeking solace, seeking the assurance that we don't ned to struggle and break the queau to know the truth, seeking the revelation that we can't change our destiny.....seeking the complaissance that there is more to life than this life,....that death is not the end of the road for a human,.......'Religion' is for those who want to be showed the way, the ones who don't think it worthy to dirty their hands to carve the path and would rather walk on a safe and frequently used highway..'Religion' does not consider science to be its friend,because science holds no belief,it has no reservations, it's free & systematic.......in science there is a reason and explanation for every step,whereas in religion all you have to do is believe and follow....

The man who made the first fire may have been burnt alive in it for doing something evil...The man who roasted the first chunk of meat in this fire may have been charred for mixing food with evil and then these people may have tasted and relished this man's flesh....That is science for you...It is the tough road, wherein the ones who carve it are are rigorously punished and treated as outcasts and a century later every single of the followers is treading down this road......Science is today's Apocrypha and tomorrow's common sense.......

Science always takes you one step forward.It is man's quest to understand everything in this matrix.It has always been treated skeptically...people are still wary of it, least knowing that it was science that made man make those sharp spears that saved him from those hungry carnivores, it is this science that is still saving him from the various calamities.....and it is this SCIENCE that will always come to its rescue........

He who thinks is a son of a man .......and he who thinks in the search of truth is a son of science...

Science....man's only tool and man's only weapon against time and space......

You...

Day one of his 22 odd day long vacation,
Day 'n' of a 22 year odd long frustration.
Sleep in the eyes,sleep in the head,
But for how long can he hang on to the bed.
Thoughts in worse tangles than the hair,
Who is goin where,who is here and who is there,
Why for all the heavens should he care?
But then the common man has got nothing else to do,
So all he can think about is you.
And then it dawns, that you are busy,
Taking time out ain't all that easy.

Waiting for you, he switches over to the paper,
Wondering what it has got to offer.
Some freaking Bachchan is sloggging 18 hours a day at 65,
Someone named Lara is going great guns at 37,
Some Olympian prodigy Thorpe retires at 24,
Someone has not even begun at 22.

It was mornin now, it's noon so soon,
Should he idle it away till it's moon.
Guess he'd try and get some more sleep,
Sleep - the refuge from sum creep,
They call it boredom.
It has its own huge kingdom.
People do their best to get that thing called freedom,
Freedom from boredom.

They work,they shirk,
They learn, they earn,
They play, they pray,
If that doesn't help, they pay.
They sing, they cling,
They worry. Yeh, they even marry,
They make bids, they have kids,
They dance, waitin for der chance...

And then by chance, a glance at the mirror.
Is it shame, is it pain, is it horror?
Wrinkles have taken over the pimples,
There was a cavity in some gum,
Now there ain't no teeth.
He hated the tangles in his hair,
Now the strands ain't there.

And halo.......
What does he see!!!
What does he feel!!!
There's a tear now, as there was a tear then.
It still feels warm, as it trickles down those wrinkled cheeks,
It felt warm as it trickled down those freckled cheeks.

The 60 year old common man that he is,
He has got nothing left to do.
He is still waiting for you,
To kill time, he can't read the paper anymore,
His eyes don't support him, as they used to before.

So he thinks about you,
You, the dog who peed with four legs down....
You, the hog who ate away all his meals......
You, the log that never woke up for class....
You, the fog that took away everything he loved.....
You, the rogue that stole his heart and disappeared.....
You...

Darker Side :-)

Can see them all...They are laughing loud...I just cant find myself...
My own shadow...I find it there..But i just cant see my body...
Where am I....Where am I...I just can't find myself...

I raise my hands to my eyes...But i just don't find them there...
This mirror i confined to for ages,it fails to recognise me...
Where am I...Where am I...I just can't find myself...

Have I changed?...How i changed ..They seem to be looking here...but not at me...
Something's wrong, very wrong...O where did I disappear...
Where am I...Where am I...I just can't find myself...

That shadow there...it was my very own...now why is it cast on my body...
This very eye...still sees the world...why is it so blind to me...
Where am I...Where am I...I just can't find myself...

Now I know...Now I know...I guess, I am nothing but my shadow...
Oh my eye...u aren't blind, it's just my darker side ...
The older me...it had to die...there was no place for it here...
Where am I...Where am I...thank goodness I am not here...

हवाएँ

हवाओं का रुख बदलना तो हम अभी तक नही सीख पाए...
पर हवा के झोंके के साथ साथ अपना रुख मोड़ना भी हमने नहीं सीखा...
शायद इसीलिए यह धूल सिर्फ हमारी आंखों में खचक्ती है...
शायद इसीलिए...
शायद यही हमारी खता थी...
शायद यही हमारी सज़ा है...

शायद किसी रोज़ हमें देखकर, हवा अपना रुख बदल देगी...
या शायद किसी रोज़ तेज़ हवा का एक झोंका इन लड़खड़ाते क़दमों का नामोनिशान तक मिटा देगा...
हमें उस दिन का इंतज़ार रहेगा..