Peace! Solitude!

Sitting with thoughts tumbling, one after the another, through my mind, I try to sift and concentrate on only one thought, something which could be said to be akin to what is recommended by the masters of meditation.

I wait for that one thought to come forward and engulf me, but the mind is so used to multi-tasking all the times, that the mind refuses to allow only one thought to spread. My son with remote in his hand is not helping the matters at all. The TV switches swiftly between a kids show to Cricket match on a sports channel to  a popular cookery show - all of these with high TRPs, coveting for attention on the 'smart box' (has to be smart to ensure that people smarter than it, sit open-mouthed in front of it for hours on a stretch).

Changing the room doesn't help. Now I can hear the traffic from the road, hawkers selling their wares with a voice loud enough to rouse the dead from their slumber.

Moving to the last safe haven in the house, I sit down again, in complete silence.

And suddenly the ears are assaulted by the loud reverberations from the neighbor's music system, belting out the latest 'Bollywood' tunes accompanied by not so soft a voice singing along.

Shaking my head, I give up all thoughts and surrender to the amalgamated sounds arising from the surroundings, closing my mind to the ideas of segregation of thoughts, abandoning all hopes for it happening in the near future, I join my son on the couch to enjoy the brainless sitcom on 'smart' box, allowing it to lure me away from solitude and peace.

Peace! Solitude!
Another Day.. you will be mine!! 

Ebb

There comes a time in your life, when you need to sit back, reevaluate where you had started for, where you are headed for; what you had intended to do and what you are doing. Life has a way of carrying one along, on its ebb and flow, making you a more or less a spectator on the sidelines of what should have been your show.

Instead of it being your life, it has become so much more..  a complex algorithm - situations compounded and often beyond your control..... you are part of so many lives, touched by so many others, who participate in the 'give & take', which is often more of take and less of give.

Your life suddenly is not just yours, it has become a chore, with getting up at the buzz of the alarm by the bedside to the mundane occurrences throughout the day to the wrapping up of the day.In the daily grind you did not realise as to when did you allow yourself to become a mere puppet of the daily grind.


The time to reevaluate gives you the leisure to see what went wrong where and how, it is an opportunity which is given rarely and should be exploited to the max. Use it wisely to sieve the husk from the wheat, bad from the good, merited from unmerited burdens; sit and cry for what you have lost - what could have been yours, but never will be, cry you heart out and then get up - dust yourself and move on.

Don't let the time be the one ruling your life, take control of your desires, aspirations. These are what define who you are and what you will be. Often in our lives we let the circumstances decide and define us.

Every day when you get up make it worth your while, do something at least once in a day which makes sense only to you, which is something you cherish, something which brings a smile to your face. 

Woh bachpan kahi...

Thoughts

The dawn arrives with thoughts of you
searing through the awakened mind
Treacherous is the mind,
rehashing every thought
every waking moment it plays a fiend
offering not a moment's respite from the fraught
Every so often these leave me feeling blue
and well... sometimes put me in a bind

Rain drops

Rain drops make a sound which seems to tug at a corner of my conscious, which tends to lie dormant or at least appears to be dormant at a glance. It may be the soft pitter-patter or the angry downpour, the sound of the rain appears to arouse the feelings of a discontent of something somewhere which still needs to be attended to, waking me (or is it the my alter ego) up from its dormancy, pushing it to the front.

There was a time when the rain brought about the feelings of despondence and just like the bearers of the rain - the dark clouds, a pall of gloom and darkness used to fill the heart; tears were easy to find. The simple act of breathing became treacherous and herculean, a task which required every cell of the will to act and make it a reality. The gloom was palpable, something that could be touched by extending the tip of a finger.

 Well, that changed, like everything else does - life goes on.

The rain now brings a cheer to the heart, calls out in a seducing whisper to come and share the happiness that it brings to the lands. The tiny drops caress the parched soul of the soil, bringing forth a fragrance which had laid dormant, making the life within to quiver, transporting it from its deep slumber.

Rain whispers, tugging at the corners of y conscious still, but now the call is more calming. It talks and calls me to walk with it. Often I have wandered in the rains, taking my liberation - liberation from the prying eyes, eyes which question, eyes which follow, rationalizations which overwhelm, conjectures which distress.

Rain takes it all away, leaving an unconcerned and unmarred me behind.

Art Attack!! :)

Radio Baby

Born in a house where radio was playing all the time, with the lilting and melodious voice of the old time singers floating in the background I am what can be called a radio baby - if there ever was or would be a term like that.

It was to the musical notes of the religious paeans that the morning used to begin. My mom being an early riser would switch on the radio and the euphonious notes would glide in the morning brilliance, rousing us from the sleep.

Afternoons, after the school were spent listening to the pleasing sounds wafting from the radio.

The daily ritual of listening to the old classics made me so adapt at knowing a song just from the initial music score, that it was a game that I often played, of guessing the song from it, and rare was the chance when I was wrong.

I knew and still know many of the old songs of the '70s and '80s and few from times before that.

It is so sad, that listening to the radio has been put on a back-burner; even if the radio is switched on, after an elapse of 5 minutes, there is not a single song played- it is one advertisement after another. The songs of today, most often are not able to bind the attention of the listener for a long time and even if popular for a short duration, often are forgotten easily.

With the advent of Walkman, I-pods, and other gadgets, the radio generation is well past its living days, especially when the radio has moved online.

Where is the fun in tuning in to a streaming frequency, without the knobs and dials of a radio?

Dreams

Dreams! A word that is defined as 'A series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep'. Important to recall is the mention that dreams happen only when one is sleeping.

What about the times one is sitting and conjures up images of what the future would be like? Is that not a dream?
Dream it is, as the thought is still not tangible, is very fragile, and is still lingering on the outskirts of your thoughts, trying to live on in your imaginations, trying to imbibe in itself the breath of life. The tangibility of life that can be its, if and only if, you are ready to take the plunge to bring it to life.

It is not easy to give birth to a dream; it requires hard-work, grit and determination to birth a dream. Endless, sleepless nights of toil, of days which claim an application of self till there is nothing left to apply, of time lost which you will never regain.

These are the risks one has to own and subjugate if one has to attain a dream.

Many of us often dream of one thing or the other in our lives; maybe a better person, a better boss, a better son/ daughter/mother, or may be a simple dream of living as you.

Dream we all do, but instead of trying to work towards achieving that one dream which keeps us awake, we try and justify the reasons for non-attempts.... and whom do we justify.. to our own self... an excuse - As soon as I am done with this project, a justification - What will my family think?.

Why does everything else become important than that one dream which does not let us sleep?
Is it because we would rather smother our own desires, aspirations to live a life that has been chosen, thrust upon us. Or is it because it is easier to live that life than to fight against it... to try and make the people around you realize that what you aspire for is not that strange.

It is all this and much more. Human beings are social animals and love to be praised and appreciated by the general public at large. Some of us are bitten by a bug, which unfortunately forces us to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. When everything seems to be going okay for them, these poor souls just land themselves into situations which demand that they give their 'much in demand' advise, which obviously no body wants, but these guys have to give it and since they are the once doling out the advise so freely, they generally are the ones ensuring the implementation of the same.

Hehe!!! Easier said than done. So, out go their dreams and in comes the responsibility of wise words.

There are some of the human species who can never say No to anyone, especially if the person asking for the request is from the immediate family or friends. And since saying a simple word 'NO' is soooo difficult, you have to pay the price.

The price is your time, resources, energy being spent on tasks you never had and never will ever have any intention of doing if you had the guts to say No.

Thus, suffice it to say that given the species that we belong to, where from the birth we are taught about the survival of all and not the fittest, we keep on sacrificing our dreams at the behest of the dreams of another.

Maybe, one day the dreamers would have the nerve to achieve their dreams. Till that day comes, let me say, quoting the words of Rabindra Nath Tagore

Open thy mind walk alone
Be not afraid, walk alone

Thyroid - a journey

Tired, jaded, wasted body

Hemoglobin drop, sanguine fluid gone

Yo-yo emotions, crotchety.. not due to age!

Rough, brambly hair.. brittle nails

Oversized, bulky, butterball, I have known it all

Incomplete, insufficient, deficient iodine.. making me sleepless (not in Seattle)

Depressed, abject, blues, dispirited.. emotions which have become cohorts

Surreal

The sun was shining bright; the cuckoo bird was singing with all its glory, hidden in the tree top. A breeze flowed, gently swaying the leaves. She was sitting on the reclining chair in the garden and enjoying a lazy day.  Curled up on the chair, with the books lying forgotten near her, she was as content as a cat after a nap. A lazy unknowing smile stretched across her face, showing her contentment. Someone who would have seen her from the road across, would have been influenced with the smile.

Laying back, she suppressed an inadvertent yawn, stretched and looked up at the sun shining bright. She appeared to be in a mind of challenging the sun to a dual of 'stare'. Sun on its part appeared to be of an indulgent temperament, helping her win with a drifting cloud covering it for a moment, a moment which allowed her to win.

Beaming, she shifted her gaze to the drama unfolding on the garden. Taking her to be part of the verdure, the squirrels had ventured down from the tree tops in search of food morsels, which we as humans often discard as superfluous. They were playing a game of 'catch me' with each other chasing each other from a tree to another. The trees stood majestically looking down with benevolence at macrocosm of which they were a significant part.

She seemed to have floated out of her body and felt she had become one with the cosmos. She became part of the game of 'chase me' the squirrels played. She flew to the tree-top and became one with the cuckoo bird. Soaring higher she became the cloud which covered the sun. Letting herself flow on the waves of the air, she became the breeze, gently swaying the leaves.

She was one with the past when the earth had been borne out of the cosmos. She was one with the future where earth was at its epitome. She became the present when she was intimate with the infinite universe.

She felt the pain of the ant that was squished under the foot of an unaware human, which would never go back to its working brethren  She felt the sadness of the bird which had lost its nest when the tree was cut down. She felt the small body of the bird filling with heart rending anguish.

Leaving the sadness, she moved on, floating away to the sea-shore, the shore where the washed up sea-shells whispered tales untold to her. She felt at peace, a joy so pure which made her feel that her heart would burst.

Her eyes flew open, saw her-self entrapped in the human body. She closed her eyes again, willing herself to the escape from the reality of physical form, except now she was just another human, unseeing, unknowing of the bounties of nature.

Raoul - 16

Earlier

Waving a quick goodbye to Lyana, Raoul looked at Masud who by now appeared so dejected with his shoulders slumped, shuffling his feet. He seemed to be sulking like a child who had been denied his favourite toy. Raoul's face twisted into a snarl which only caused Masud to lengthen his sulk. Groaning inwards, Raoul, pushed him forward towards the waiting taxi, which he had just managed to flag down.

He asked Masud to give directions to the driver, causing another sigh to escape from his lips and more slumping of shoulders. Raoul never knew that anyone could slump so much; feeling a sudden burst of sympathy, he extended his hand to Masud's shoulder and tapping it gently, told him that things would be okay once his buddies were found and he could sort it out with them.

Masud replied with a mumbled, 'I sure hope you are correct for all our sakes. You have no idea what you are doing and the people you are going to upset.'

Raoul tried to pry some more words out of Masud, but it was as if the effort of speaking those two sentences had drained him of all ability of speech. He lay slumped, his face touching the windowpane, his body willing to escape to another place.

They soon reached the address Masud had told the cab driver. The neighborhood was much better than the one Lyana and Raoul had visited in the morning, trying to locate Masud. It was in the part of the city which was coming up as 'the' place to be living at, with anyone with money willing to buy himself/ herself a place in the higher echelons of the society.

Masud needed some more prodding from Raoul before he started to move or rather muddled his way towards the building. Nearer they were to the building, louder and more was the whimpering sounds escaping Masud. Raoul was afraid that people might think that Masud was in some kind of danger from Raoul and asked Masud to stop with his whining.

The whimpering stopped but the shoulders slumped some more. For a second, Raoul lost his cool, but then he found it comical trying to talk to a person who seemed to have lost of his powers of reasoning. He felt sympathy for Masud, but it was too small in front of the need for Raoul to get to the crux of the matter. He owed it to the story and also to the Museum. More than anything, he knew he had to clear Lyana's name which had been dragged into all the mess due to this stumbling cousin of hers, who seemed to have lost his backbone.

Raoul - 17

Raoul - 15

Earlier

It was Lyana's hand that restricted him to his seat. Lyana told him to leave the questioning till after the restaurant to avoid any other further unsavory moments. Raoul wanted to step out and take a walk, but he really doubted that on his coming back Masud would be sitting with Lyana. He did have a way of slithering away from situations that seemed unfavorable to him.

He sat impatiently, tapping his foot on the floor, waiting for Masud to finish with his regurgitation of food.  He found it difficult with Masud trying to form words while chomping on his food, as if the food choice that Masud had made was not been enough, he had to be a complete oaf about it too.

After what seemed to be agonizing 10 minutes of food - chewing by Masud, who was relishing a meal which he had not dreamed of having till the morning of the day, the food had been gobbled up by him. Raoul motioned for the bill ad paying with a haste he had rarely shown, paid for it and taking Masud from the elbow, dragged him out to the street.

The noise of the street hit them with a violence, drowning out their words, so that Raoul had to speak at a pitch he was not comfortable with. He shouted to Masud to answer as to whom had he lent the car that day.

Masud opened and shut his mouth in rapid succession without any sound escaping his lips. Raoul glared at him, repeating his question and hardening his hold on Masud's elbow, afraid that he would sprint away at the slightest chance. Masud told Raoul that he would take him to meet the 'boys' who had taken the car, but he would need some time to find out about their whereabouts.

Masud said that he would meet Raoul later in the day, all the while wishing that Raoul would agree. The fear was so strong, that Raoul could smell it off him. He knew, if he let Masud go once, it would be very difficult to catch hold of him again. Taking a quick decision, he asked Lyana to return home and told Masud, "Tell you what, I'll accompany you, let's find these 'boys' together. Should save you a lot of trouble. Two heads are always better than one."

Masud's shoulders slumped; he realized there was no escape from Raoul now. He mumbled his agreement and started to shuffle from one foot to the other, wishing he had been some-where else earlier.

Raoul - 14

Earlier

Masud sat languidly in the chair opposite to Raoul and Lyana, the only sign of life he was showing was his ever shifting eyes which appeared to be in a hurry to absorb every sight. Raoul had always found it annoying, but today when he wanted to reach the matter's crux he found it infuriating. Lyana could sense the unease in Raoul.

To lighten the situation, she asked if Masud would like to have something and as soon as the words were out, she regretted saying them, knowing that Masud could never turn down a freebie even if it was the need of the hour.

 Masud ordered for nasi goreng istimewa, fried rice served with lightly fried egg, cucumber slices and kerupuk along with a cup of regular coffee (Lyana thought it was a strange combination for the hour). As soon as the dish arrived he dug into it with large spoonfuls.

 
Raoul found it difficult to control himself any longer, slamming the table loud enough for it to rattle, he asked Masud if he knew anything about the robbery at the Museum. Masud looked at Raoul, blinking his eyes, all colour draining from his face. Masud was never a pleasing face to look at, with the colour gone, he appeared corpse-like, choking on his food. He reached for the glass of water midst the sputtering. Raoul reiterated his question to Masud.

Masud told Raoul that he was not sure as to what he was talking about. Raoul lunged forward, covering the small table in one small movement and said, "I am asking this one last time. Don't force me to call the cops and turn you over to them. Might just put some sense into your brain."

Masud looked placidly at him, slowly chewing on the food in his mouth, all the while reminding Raoul of a cud-chewing cow. He said agonizingly slowly, "Alright, I might just know something about what you are talking. And, no, I was not directly involved. Yes, I did borrow sis's car. Had given to a couple of buddies for a few hours. Them might have been the ones you are talking about."

Raoul felt like wringing his neck with his bare hands, may be that would make him speak faster and more intelligent. To think, he had been a student at the best university at one time.

We just do not care enough...

Different countries.... two incidents...

In the first, a troubled man shot 20 kids, kids who had yet to live a life... in a school soon after he had given a similar fate to his mother. A mother who probably felt safe knowing that she had a gun at her home, safe in the knowledge that she could protect herself and her family from the 'evil'.

Little did she know that the 'evil' she so feared was lying dormant in her own hearth, waiting, waiting very patiently with a bated breath, for the time when her son would be the one to assimilate it and become the harbinger of 'evil' and death.

She had always felt safe but that day was a cursed one wherein her son took the gun and listened to the voices in his head. The voices which whisper to all of us, coaxing us to pay deference to them, to be one with them. Most of us are able to curb these voices and make a rationale decision.

Unfortunately, Adam Lanza was not able to ignore the voices in his head and believing these to be true, did what he thought was the best.... Rest we all know

He  had become a manikin to a malice which had spread in the society, a keen desire to possess a gun, a desire which was fueled by the hunger to earn more profits. The shootout led to many a candle-light vigils, many responses on the social media, sharing of the horrific images in order to sensitize the masses. There were demands for change in the gun laws

Another country.... a girl raped, tortured and thrown off a moving bus. A nation awakens, its youth getting together to speak out against the terrible crime committed against the humanity. They still are rallied as I write, braving the cold and the apathy of the government which after a month finds itself at sea about how to handle the situation.

A government which did not find the courage to address the nation on an issue which appears to have shaken the masses out of a deep slumber. A government which is headed by people who treat the many of the issues being faced by  the nation as 'chalta hai'

But does all of this make a difference to the people after the 'dust' has settled, when the people have left the place of vigil, have gone back to the mundane, to the false sense of safety which comes after a time of turbulence.

The question to ask is, 'Was it the first shootout or was it the first incidence where a woman had been shamed by the ones who were supposed to protect her'? The answer is a loud NO. It was not the first time and it would not be the last.

Many a time such incidences have occurred in the past and might happen in the future too.

The vigil of the masses have moved and scared the ruling regimes across the nations and across the sands of time, from the French Revolution to the recent upheaval in the Arab nations, causing a shift in the power structures. Masses lamentably are easily lulled into a false sense of security. The awakened multitude needs to accept its responsibility for the choices it allows people in power to make on its behalf.

The responsibility which would weigh heavy on all of us, forcing us to be proactive.