Poetry: The Unmistakable She

---------A-young-bride-to-be----------

Ladden with gold, smelling so divine
Clad in red, intoxicating like wine...

she believed in her fate and of course her life
her definitions would change, from a maiden to a wife...

her future was sealed, a seal of hope
ignorance was indeed a bliss, as preached by the pope....

--------A-forced-sex-worker----------

She blinked twice, clock was way past nine...
Bathe, groom and report, or pay her fine..

she feared her credits and of course her debts
they would not be cleared, not unless she gets...

a sum unthinkable, and responsibility of a whore,
sensuality was a curse, as Mahabharata bore...

---------An-unwanted-girl-child----------

Some toys, some bangles were enough of a shine...
her father didnt have to beat her, for his personal crime..

she loved her family and of course her tribe
unaware of her rights, that she could subscribe...

to make her choices and give them voice....
to be raided every night, and still hold her poise...

------An-apparently-successful-and-a-powerful-business-woman------

She had power she knew, so much in her sign...
It could manipulate traders, of either mineral or mine...

she held nothing back, of course there wasnt a need
she could bet on her ethics, her actions and every deed

she was the kinds, kings would desire..
however she would deny, and incarnate herself to fire...

-------------An-old-mother---------------

A long piece of cloth, an ageing skin and a priceless beauty
of mind and heart, of love and duty..

she had nothing more to lose, she had given it all
sometimes to save her children, sometimes to let empires fall...

she awaited her end to escape the fud
of ill treatment and hatred, as the Vedas had said would bud...

Questions & Answers

1. I lose my consciousness every time I sleep, so do I technically die and get born everyday?

2. It’s all about small -small choices I have made and I have to make and that decides the person,       I am going to be.

3. I have never made any bold choices ever or if I have, they are insignificant. This is

preventing me from being the person I want to be.

4. I have to stop thinking so much about everyday things. In the end, nothing is going to matter.

5. If people don’t love me, its okay! They love none. But if people don’t respect me, should I start

to bother?

6. Am I a leader of my own or do I need recognition?

7. I am letting myself being overshadowed in the name of love.

8. Love means selflessness. But I love myself too.

9. Who decides what best is. Ultimately, the question is what I want.

10. It’s okay to be unnoticed, eccentric, random and lost. Most geniuses have possessed these

qualities. Is this some kind of a relief statement though?

11. It hurts not to genuinely feel angry over things people are doing to you every day.

12. Am I rude?

13. Does she love me? Does he not love me?

14. I miss childhood. I don’t want to keep growing up.

15. Am I living or do I only exist?

16. Am I responsible for all my successes? If not, then I am not responsible for all my failures

either. In that case, why the f*** did I let others contribute to my failures?

17. Is it not possible to be a template normal and yet have multiple-personality disorder?

18. Is popularity a yard stick?

19. I like fashion and sex. I also like religion and politics.

20. I might be a science student. But I am interested more in philosophy!

21. Why are there boundaries everywhere?

22. Atomically, there is no difference between Bill Gates &  Mother Teresa or Rakhi Sawant & bin Laden.

23. I did well in school because there was no internet then.

24. I lost my proposal ring. Is it such a big deal?

25. I want to prevent accidents because I live my life like it was a video game.

26. Die hard optimism also means turning a blind eye to the risks involved.

27. Coffee and books go together. Who the f*** told you that?

28. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a person la la and la. How, if I may ask?

29. Waasup? I would be able to tell you better had you asked how I felt.

30. There was a time, compliments embarrassed me. Too much modesty! Do I crave them

today?

31. Am I shy or am I an introvert? No, they don’t mean the same.

32. Don’t play the reverse-psychology trick on me.

33. Those days when solitude was beautiful are gone. Now it’s a responsibility.

34. I crib when life sucks. I crib when life is perfect. I crib.

35. My beauty is inner. Please look into my eyes.

36. I was an open book. Now, I am a closed trunk of things which guise themselves as crap.

37. You think you are cool? Define Cool.

38. Samay-ka-mehtva was every Hindi teacher’s favorite essay topic. Any takeaways?

39. Life sucks? Break the straw.

40. Too many rules. Too much strain. Heaps of laziness. Countless commitments. This is what education does.

Relationship Status - Symbiotic

Mind is powerful. Difficult to remember how many times I must have heard this phrase. But I do remember the times I have taken it very seriously. Zero. However, when I sit down to type these strings of sentences, I realize how quickly mind proceeds and processes. However there is a catch to it.

It does it at its own little but, mind you, egoistic will. No matter how fast it speeds most of the times, especially the times you want to go to sleep or not argue or eat or drink or do some random but necessary sustenance activity, it will fail to perform when you need it, perhaps the most!

For example, your memory will go for a toss during examinations, your IQ will be in soup when you are debating and your thinking power will simply JAM when you want to tell the well-dressed hot looking female HR, why precisely you should be the one she should be aiming for or was it otherwise? [wink, wink ;)]

And when a person, such as the reader-of-this-post, bothers to spend around a minute pondering over why it so often happens, the most plausible explanation comes out to be that the mind-is-moody. Mind almost is another person in itself over which we do not have control but what we do have is influence. So if you rise in your egoist grandeur and order it to do something, it will not be your slave to serve you. However if you flirt with it like a potential lover, if you praise it, play with it, feed it, accept its feedback, make it your friend, it will more often than not respond positively. Imagine! So much for something which is inside you and is not even a living thing! Well, not exactly, right?

Imaging having the scope to do so much with just one bit of yourself. Nevertheless with the most powerful bit. While reading this, I hope, my-dear-reader, you realize that when you have your mind in place, why do you need someone else to train? A student, a pet or a system?

Where I am getting is at the old idiom- 'Charity begins at home'. Your mind is your first and also the ultimate abode. If in a lifetime of ups, downs, successes and failures, you are not able to attend to the callings of your mind, I am sorry to say, you have not done too much. So if there is training to do, in order to achieve whatever might be your ambition or goal, it is most important and perhaps the most simplistic challenge to meet, it is of your mind.

I am bound by linguistic limitations to have been referring this as training, but you could also call it friendship, love, understanding or cooperation.

Any term that remotely showcases characteristics of a symbiotic relationship with a heavenly bliss.

Conversing religions!

" This is a first hand account of an ongoing conversation with a close friend over text messages. The background is that we both happen to belong to two different templates of this society, me being a so called 'Hindu' and him being a believing 'Muslim'. The conversation began with my curiosity of learning the disputed differences between Shia & Sunni Muslims, the question solely arising because of a certain reference of Hazaras in the book that I am currently reading"

Him -The conversation begins as a result of his remark - "Tell me, if you turn a Muslim! I would love to see that."

Me- "I am beyond belonging my identity to any religion. I only want to learn ways of life. Religion anyway is unnatural."

Him - "Religion is unnatural?"

Me- "Yeah obviously, man created it! No one is born with religion!"

Him - "Well, do you believe in your religion?"

Me- "I don't think I have a typically established religion. I do say I follow one for my society and parents. I revere all beliefs. The only thing that I find important is compassion & humanity. Why bother about deities, rituals or certain dates? If religion is a folk way of describing nature, I would accept it."

Him - "So you are open to the idea of being in any religion?"

Me- "I am not open to the idea of religion only as such...but yeah you could say"

Him - "But then, don't you think the world is run by a higher being? I mean is it possible all of this runs naturally?"

Me- "Are you trying to say you believe some one up there is playing a video game? One person or a gang? Really? I do believe that there is an energy but it is the energy of life, energy of existence, energy of duality."

Him - "Well I don't believe its really that simple...I believe there is a higher entity responsible for creating the world as it is and the beings and non beings in it...somehow I find this world to be too complex to be run by natural mechanism..I believe there is more to it."

Me- "Everything is simple....its a matter of perspective...you can break down an entire engine into metal which further breaks down into atoms and further into ions...totally depends on how you want to look at it ...I don't want to contest your viewpoint with the fear of shocking you or offending you..but I don't agree."

Him - "No its ok...I wish to know what you think about this...I may be a little shocked and offended eventually..But I want to hear what you have to say."

Me- "Haha ok, tell me, how do you know about religion? Have your parents told you? Have you read books on it? Isn't first hand experience way more authentic? Try to remember what you have felt. And if religion is true, do you think Gods above belong to different beliefs and are fighting up there like we do on earth? Is it not absurd? Who knows which religion is true or right? Religion is just a way of organizing people. Its an institution to take away some rights, to put some order, to establish rules...and am not sure if that is again a good thing.."

Him - "Apart from my belief in a higher entity, if there isn't a belief in a higher power, what draws the line between good and evil...what gives us the choice to do whats right? What is the right thing to do? What I believe is that a God exists, different religions substantiate different means to that existence...different rituals & cultures are there honor that power................................................................................Besides, what remains in living in this mortal world? For money? For power? For honor? Do you think that there might be more to it than that? And besides, can you deny the power of your prayers? Can you just restrict its strength to the fact that it empowers you psychologically? Or is that it raises serotonin and endorphin levels in your endocrine system and relieves you of mental stress and increases your concentration? Is that about it? Is it possible to explain everything through nature & science? Or is science and nature a medium of his knowledge to us? To show us signs of his blessings and the might to deliver us well being and health in one instant and take it all away in a minute."

Me- "See as far as the power of praying is concerned, it is a form of meditation ...its stimulation and relaxation of mind and body ..and you think a higher entity exists so that you and i could have a purpose to exist? As far as good & evil is concerned, they are sides of a coin...they are subjective & situational..without evil, even good has no importance."

Him - "No! What I wish to imply is that the grand scale of life is much beyond the realm of our understanding and knowledge..Yes, evil & good do go hand in hand...and which side we choose defines who we are..And how we find a place in this world and the next.What the ultimate purpose of life is something that is a mystery to me...But I live by a code that 3 generations of my family have taught me... - Respect your God, love you family and contribute to the good of humanity in whatever way you can."

Me- "That's cool"

Him - "Well, I am sure my humble and simple code may not explain or satisfy your quench for understanding..but I find it fulfilling enough for myself..especially in such testing times...."

Me- "Yeah, its totally understandable that you follow these codes and if you think it simplifies your life and keeps you happy, its great."

Him - "Every1 needs something to keep them running, whats yours??"

Me- "I don't know. Happiness maybe"

Him - "Happiness in totality is good....very simple...its difficult to pursue that.."

Me- "I would like to say a lot more but then I guess we would keep debating..."

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Dilemna of Duality

The concept of duality is not limited to physics or astronomy. What is truly interesting is that duality is as real a truth as life & death. Perhaps even larger a truth. This is because duality aptly defines all that can be possibly defined. For e.g. it may not be easy to describe what are the likely characteristics of a particular person, place or event but it is much easier and more pragmatically comprehensive to describe what are not the characteristics of the given subject. Also the meaning of one exists only when the meaning of its dual counterpart or compliment exists.

To exemplify this, there are uncountable pairs to study. Life & Death, Light & Dark, Proximity & Distance, Love & Hatred, Happiness & Gloom, Victory & Defeat are some of the more human-defined pairs. Duality pretty much is a law of nature too. Mornings & Nights, 2 shores of an ocean, Origin & Decline, Male & Female are perfect duals of each other. The existence of one is meaningless without the other. In fact without the pair existing in simultaneity, the existence of one is impossible to identify, given that it does exist. Hence arises the most important thought to reflect upon, if good doesn't exist without the evil, then evil is as important as the good. If there is no life without death, even death must be held in as much light and as much celebration. If the feeling of love cannot be fulfilling without experiencing hate, does it not become important to accept and embrace hatred as well?

When we do know that duality exists, both the sides being of equal energy and importance, why is it that we tend to favor only one of the elements? Why is that we grow affinity towards one and repel the other? Do we blame it on the human nature of greed for what is socially more acceptable or we do understand that we have failed to evolve into beings who can view and appreciate things with balance and unbiased judgment?

I further ask, is asking questions enough...if not where do we find answers? Extroverts would say travel, introverts would explore themselves. I say, just watch and believe!

Trees & Shrubs

A walk down, not the memory lane but just the usual road to college. Its lush green. Looks beautiful in pictures, looks awe inspiring in visualization! But it is more than usually overlooked by eyes which only keep looking for social or professional conditioned purpose. For eyes which keep a track of step & time. For a mind which is bent upon reaching the destination as quickly and with as much efficiency as possible! As if efficient walking was even a possibility! Strange!

How those usual walks changed, when that same pair of eyes started looking at the trees around. How the shrubs looked like the ones borrowed from movie landscapes or winning photography! How beautifully the colors began to tell a story...how magically all of a sudden there became so many shades of only one color - green!

That is when the mind realized, how tricky it is to be open to beauty, open to the environment around. That now it takes a conscious effort to not block every thing that comes our way. That it is almost maverick to be able to appreciate existence in just the way it exists.

The same path looks so much more inspiring now, because I have begun to look, not with my eyes, but with my mind. I have begun to notice how sunshine seeps through the web of leaves and network of twigs, how red gradates into thousands of shades of pink, brown and orange, how trees who have shed their trees look like a barren land which is lonely but nevertheless strong & proud, how the quietness of mind can let you hear sounds which never before existed for you, the chirping of birds, the leaves rumbling, the crackling & tweeting of insects!

Those sounds, those sights are not only in movies! They are all around! Everywhere! Just an open mind is a prerequisite to access all of this natural glamor! Inshaah Allah!

The 'Great' Story

What do great people and great achievements forsake in their endeavor to become great and successful is of little concern to the kind of world which only showcases and highlights the jazz and the blitz, the pomp and show, the crazy and the funny. In the journey of achieving greatness, the definition of which remains subjective and at a lot of times, controversial, a lot of beings, human or not, rather humane or not leave behind a plethora of opportunities where they could have been even greater. Of course, this only by a certain perspective. They leave behind chances of making a difference to those lives which direly require a difference. They leave behind the chance of holding a child’s hand and helping him walk who only crawls today with his polio-hit limbs. They leave behind the chance of handing over a 10 rupee note to an old Baba who could have blessed them with immense holy wishes. They leave behind the chance to see the starry yet tear filled smile of a young girl who could have not died of thirst, only if they had bought her a bottle of water in that scorching Indian summer.

However, we must not digress. This is the story of the great. Not of greatness. This is the story of the mighty. And not the might. Moreover why only people? Talk of the cities. Cities which we call the grand Metros. The marketing people build strategies for these places. They are the talk and the preference of the elite. These are the places where international brands are launched and humungous malls are built. Each and every company has these places in their vision. These are great cities. Huge and populous. Rich and powerful. Concrete and blood. Concrete, of the ones who live in beautiful apartments. Blood, of those who dwell in slums and sleep on pavements.
Only last night while heading home after dinner. I ran into two kids of around 10 years each sitting on the pavement along one of the most happening roads of Mumbai, Bandra-Khar linking road. The expressions on their faces hit me with a pang of guilt and sorrow. I felt I was being led into depression with their depressed, remorseful and hopeless sight. They didn’t deserve the expression they had in their eyes at such a young age. They didn’t deserve to be homeless or be sitting on the pavement. They didn’t deserve to have such a childhood. I only look back and crib about the nothingness of my childhood. They unknowingly gave me all the reasons to be grateful about it now. Those kids, I don’t know have parents or not. Those kids, I don’t know have eaten or not. Those kids, I hope, are at least a pair. That’s my only consolation. They’re two. Thank God. And then there is God. We all have anyway left it upon him to take action.

What can we do? It’s not even the question. Do we even feel enough to try? The city as great as Mumabi can not treat its children in this manner. If it does, it is not great. If it tries, it might become great with the virtue of not filth and show but of true greatness which only lies in being human, which only persists if you follow your heart instincts, which only develops if you stop a moment, think and act.

The greatness lies in your account of not money or gold, but of how many smiles can you account for, how many blessings can you bank upon, how many wishes have come out only for you. Luck happens, not by luck, but these little deeds which make world of a difference in a lot of lives. Someone may just remember you forever for smiling at him or her when he needed a conforming smile. Someone may owe you his or her life for saving them with food or water when they were starving. Someone might be praying for your health and well being for anything nice that you might have done for them.

You might not remember you own little good deeds. But you’ll certainly never regret them. They might not do any good to you. But they will certainly not do any harm. They might not pen you down in history. But they will certainly not let you fade in someone’s memory.

This might matter to you. If it does, you’re already quite great. If it doesn’t, you can attempt greatness.