Adios!

I will slip off in the middle of the night
I will go to a far off land
in the hope that we shall meet again someday, my friend
someday in the promised land!

Kasab's Antithesis

So kasab would be hanged, well good riddance as most of us would say but I didn’t start writing this blog to bolster the already prevalent cry for his blood but to commit a ‘sacrilege’. Just finished ‘waiting for the mahatma’ by R.K.Narayan and have to admit I have been hit by something, not of the sort that one experiences after reading an Ayn Rand (thankfully ie as she tends to shake up my very foundation), in this case I have been forced to change my views about our ‘father of the nation’. From time immemorial I have been a critic of the man, his philosophy ( which I now admit that I really didn’t understand) and his way of attaining Swaraj. I was always seduced by the firebrand characters of our freedom struggle and their philosophies. But R.K has changed all that for me. In his simplistic yet effective style he depicted mahatma with such honesty that you nearly start living with the character. All this has made me think about non-violence, unconditional honesty and great strength of character..everything that the man symbolized.

Coming back to the sacrilege part, I wonder if the mahatma would have been happy with the verdict. Trying to guess his reaction would be difficult especially with my history of ignorance about Gandhi. Still I feel he would have never endorsed the gallows for the 22 year old man. Mahatama is said to have once branded Bhagat Singh and his likes as terrorists (something which infuriated me to no ends) and I guess he would do the same with Kasab too. But the point is if he is a terrorist and that part is accepted then why not hang him? Mahatma being mahatma would have declined. That man had some magic. Imagine a man as insignificant looking as they can be, comes and changes the socio-politico environment of the whole nation without raising his hand, voice or even an eyebrow! Our rational, logical mind stops us from believing that a man of such ability lived amongst us.( remember Einstein once saying “Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth". I’m a great admirer of that scientist as is half of the world and when a brain such as his says something like that, the lesser mortals like me better listen to it. )

So what is it to Gandhi that makes him The Mahatma. That is a million dollar question I would say. You know it was not just Satya and Ahimsa which he preached that maketh the man ( he himself once said "I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and Non-violence are as old as the hills") There was something more to the man, may be some halo about his head or some eternal light bestowed upon him..I exactly don’t know but there was something which this generation of human beings must find out if it intends to prolong its stay on mother earth. Martin luther king junior had rightly said “……..If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. He lived, thought, acted and inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony…………..".

In the end I would like to question that till the time we decipher what mahatma actually wanted to teach or another mahatma comes about, what are we supposed to do with the kasab sorts? I know the common choice but I would like to hear that ‘No’ from the mahatma himself and more importantly I would like to know his reason behind saying so. Till then kasab is all yours, mutilate him in the middle of the road and feed him to the scavengers, I say ( and hope that mahatma didn’t hear it, did he?? )

interesting piece!

A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.

PS: that is not an original...came across this and found it interesting...hope its d same with u!

I beg to differ!!!

So we are here,finally we have arrived...after all those millions of births as insects, animals , plants and all other inexplicable things...you,myself and all of them around have taken birth as human beings on this mother Earth. Well that's not what i say,but the sacred Gita tells us !!
Ok agreed...no i wont contest that point as you might have thought...I really dont care from where I came as long as I'am alive and kicking! but I have my own doubts...there is something called as 'karma'...rings a bell,well it must have...cos karma is something which has been been treated as a philosophy rather than just a word...its something mystic...some overbearing law which cant be escaped or broken ( good to know that such a law exists,cos that means we have hope)
Why did everything went wrong at the last moment,when i had rehearsed n number of times???
why did this happen to me when i have not done any wrong???
why the hell...!!!
I'm sure you must have asked yourself and others these questions at some point...n guess what the reply was..."well that's your karma" .......superb,i mean excellent!!! of all such questions you may ask them,they would give you this sacred verse which u rather should believe cos its the mystic law...'u can ignore it but sorry cant escape it'. And the best part is that u dnt have to be a god fearing person to accept this law as it transgresses all religious boundaries and even the most die hard atheist scholars fall 'prey' to it!!!
So for heavens sake will some one tell me what karma has a new born earned when he is born in a ambani house hold vis a vis a new soul entering this world (mind u after all those millions of 'janams') in the dharavi slum just to find himself/herself a life ,which most of the people outside that slum and unfortunately also inside,dnt consider worth living!! My question is WHY HIM??? and well by now u know their answer...'that's his karma'...i say wtf!!!
What karma are they exactly talking about...ohh 'previous janam' is it??? well i feared this...for people like u and me they tell us to dig into our past and find the reasons whenevr we pose these questions(why me sorts) and to my surprise we always do get something to satisfy ourselves...no matter how illogical it may be at times...(like a small boy stealing a loaf of bread in his childhood,being penalised with an accident in which he loses his hand...he asks them n they say karma!) but what about this chap who has just opened his eyes in the slum under the greyish blue mumbai sky...he doesnt have a past,so they ask us to believe an atrociously built logic to it...past life karma...huh...may i ask how can a person be penalised or for that matter rewarded for the deeds of someone
1. He doesnt even know
2. He has never come across
3. He is not even faintly related to, in any sense of the word
and just to rub it in a bit more...the same points hold for the 'previous janam person' in question with regard to this new born! ohh...do i hear them say 'soul' well what's that- a quasi meta physical/biological realm of existense (and dnt knw what else)...and even if that's the bond between these two totally unrelated individuals...still if i break someone's face now why should the repercussions be burnt by some one who will be born may a few decades after my demise...cos we share the same soul,well even if i take that...dnt they get,it was not the soul which incited me to break that face,but my mind which instructed and co-ordinated a neat swing of the arm with the fingers getting into a fist and finally landing a blow at an angle which only a brain can perceive.And at the worst he just inherited my soul (i dnt know how he managed to do that,ie if he did) not my brain, so WHY HIM!!!
this brings me to the final part of this...THE BRAIN. I may have come across as a non-believer of i dnt know how many things but i believe in the power of the human brain. that's the supreme of them all. I do believe if you dont study you would fail... cos "A is A" . If there is a thing you cant escape...that's REALITY. An apple falls downwards not because that's its karma...but because of a real force called gravity, we know so well. That fellow met with an accident not cos that's his karma but cos may be he was negligent or the driver was...that's the reality and he cant escape it. coming back to that new born chap...well he has been born into a slum not cos of an iota of a fault of his,but the reality is that he would now have to struggle for his mere existense since the word go. Why he was born, well simple...its a unjustified,illogical world...made up of a few rudimentary systems just to create an illusion to the common man that it's not...but A is A...n i believe it is!!!

Romancing...!!!

Why is it ,that i always find u near
Why is it ,that i have this ever lingering fear,
Why is it ,that i have dried up my tears
Why do i feel alone even amongst my peers.

Why is it ,that i miss my words when we meet
and then the only thing i hear is my 'heart beat',
Why is it ,that you seem to be omnipresent to me
I know its a dream,but believe its reality.

Why is it ,that i cant miss those eyes even in a crowd
and whenever you are beside me i feel inexplicably contented and proud,
Why is it ,that i can sniff even a whiff of your scent
and whatever you may say i would always believe that,for me u are 'god sent' !!

Why is it ,that whenever i'm happy
i want to hold u in my arms & fly,
and no matter whether for me its a low or a high
whenever u smile, u make me sigh.

Why is it ,that i cant forget the time
we spent together,the 'golden days',
u know we laughed, cried & fought
in may be a thousand ways.

but it was for u that i lived
for u that i saved,
it was for u that i fought
for u that i prayed.

Why is it ,that i love u the way
i have never loved someone before,
Why is it ,that it seems impossible to
live even for a day without u anymore.

Why is it ,that i'm losing u each day & moving afar
won't we hold on,baby...will we go apart ???

THE DILEMMA

In this cold winter night when everything stands still
When the white clouds are coming down from that far off hill,
When I can even see by breath go out
I weep within as I want to shout.
Its not that life has been unkind
But something’s bogging down my mind,
As I try to figure it out,through this winter haze
I get embroidled in that engulfing maze.
The question is not big neither its small
But somehow I haven’t been able to take the call,
Somehow it has always got the better of me
Somehow it’s a part of my entity.
But tonight I want to set it aside
As this silent night reminds me of my plight,
Tonight I want to break all the cobwebs and take flight
Where the sky above is not dark but a plethora of colours,bright.
As I go into the battle again
All my efforts go in vain,
Tonight when the time was rife
I couldn’t again find an answer to the question,
What am I going to do in life!!!

DIMENSIONING TIME !!!

Einstein referred to TIME as the fourth dimension, most people didn’t get him then…he reasoned that it was important as everything in this world is relative.
Today after so many years I disagree with the great man.
As for me it should be the first and if required the last dimension to be followed. Its not that I don’t understand the importance of the x-y-z co-ordinates, but its just that today all that seems so blur. Coming to think of it, you can actually measure and understand, to your surprise and presumed disbelief, everything under the sun, using TIME as a dimension.
Just think of it…you can span your whole life on it ( and see whether it has been worth all the effort or not !!! I hope the answer is yes for you)…you can look at a marvelous building and get awed by the 3-D complexities of it, but at the end of the day you have to remember that even that man-made structure has a life of its own. Right from the time of it getting conceptualized, being transferred to the drafting table and then finally getting its shape on the piece of land where it finally stands. In the end if you see it all wrt to time I’m sure you would be able to understand and appreciate it in a much better way.
Time is that one little thing that would keep the element of variance in your life, it would not let you stop. So whether you do it voluntarily or not, time would plot a graph for you on its axis…the challenge for us is to make sure that we have more peaks than the troughs in the final analysis.

UNITE

Unite if you want to live a life
Unite if you want the safety of your children and wife

Unite you must, if you still want to sing
Unite because that’s your last way your last thing

Unite if you still have your heart and soul
Unite your youth for that final goal

Unite if you still don’t know your mark
Unite before it becomes too late, too dark

Unite if you love your motherland, mate
Unite to close the evil gate

Unite if you want to have a say
Unite you may, if you still want to make it your day

Unite so that generations down line
Recognize us as brave
Unite so that you can hold your head high
To the moment when you are lowered into your grave.

fed-exp derailed !!!

what a heart break it has been...couldnt hv imagined this even in my wildest dreams that roger federer,the king...the one i'm an ardent fan of would be humiliated in such a way at Phillippe Chatrier,really what a shame!!!

We all knew that rafa is improving by the day and is the master of clay but the way he demolished roger today was like rude shock for all fedex fans. i wont go into the details of what all fedex didnt do which he should have or how the spaniard just outplayed him in every department of the game...cos the game's over n so is the dream of watching roger winning on parisian soil, atleast for an year.

What inspired me to key in this post were reasons nothing else but emotional,so as I feel disoriented and try to streamline my haywired thoughts i apologise for ending this abruptly...but promise to come back with lots more on roger once he wins the Wimbledon this year...fingers crossed...

my role model

The moment I try to think of my inspirations many names crop up, Einstein for the sheer genius he was, Subhas Chandra Bose for the courage and bravery that man impersonified, Gandhi for being the true idealistic and many people having a rags to richest story, not because I want their wealth but because I want their audacity of dreaming big and then materializing their dreams. But surprisingly I find that though I want a bit of everyone I don’t idealize anyone in particular. The one who really inspires me to reach greater heights, the one who shows me the way whenever I get lost is, the guy in the mirror!
I may be sounding a bit egoistic, but surely I’m not. It’s just that, that the guy in the mirror means so much to me. Everytime I win and feel invincible, just a mere look at him makes me feel mortal again. Everytime I’m down and tending to give up, he inspires me to avenge myself, to go for the heights I have never dreamt before. The guy in the mirror, knows me the best .He knows my darkest secrets, my weaknesses, my strengths and he is always ears to share my feelings ,this is not to say that I don’t have good friends or family but still.
At the end of the day I know its all about him. My goal is to perfect that guy, to get out the best in him. And I shall pursue that my whole life. But in this I can’t bluff. Because I may fool the whole world, I may be a put on and nobody would come to know but the moment I get in front of the guy in the mirror, I stand naked. So in a way, he is the filter I use. He keeps my conscience clean and helps me to realign and introspect everytime I go wayward, everytime I sin. He has guided me through life and would keep doing so. As he is my mentor.
In the end I just hope that the guy in the mirror keeps inspiring and guiding me. But more importantly that I’m able to see him in the eye till my last breath .Because he is the one I idealize, he is my guru ,my role model and he shall take me through this thing called, Life.
PS - this I wrote as an entry to the creative writing competition held in my company.

didnt know it was 'YOU' !!!

I didn’t know it was you,
When you looked at me and smiled
I didn’t know it was you,
When you asked me “what’s the time ??”

I didn’t know it was you,
When I borrowed your pen
I didn’t know it was you,
When we met again

I didn’t know it was you,
When we talked for hours without getting bored
I didn’t know it was you,
When we laughed at the silliest of jokes.

I didn’t know it was you,
When I held your hand and flied
I didn’t know it was you,
When I got late and you cried.

I didn’t know it was you,
When the life was at its best
I didn’t know it was you,
When I held you to my chest.

I didn’t know it was you,
When the seasons passed by
I didn’t know it was you,
When we finally said “goodbye” !!!

HOLI : a foreplay with colours

This holi, may the colours not just paint the sky,
but look beautiful to someone who is not gifted with an eye

This holi, may the ‘gulal’ not just touch the face,
but also the lives of numerous underpriviledged, whom we consider a disgrace

This holi, make sure that it’s not only your child who has the fun,
but even your servant’s son, gets to dream of the stars and the sun

This holi, when your water canon splashes in all directions,
spare a thought for primary education and social resurrection

This holi, when you have ‘bhaang & bhujiya’ and get a high,
see that the old are not complaining of being neglected, as it’s not a lie

This holi, when you sing and dance to the drums beat,
don’t forget that somewhere a labourer is working in that sweltering heat

This holi, don’t just colour your surroundings
red, green , orange , yellow , blue…..
but also the lives of others as it’s only then
that the colours, get ‘true’ !!!.

THIS POEM WAS WRITTEN as a part of THE POETRY COMPETITION HELD AT MY WORLKPLACE AND IT FETCHED ME THE FIRST PRIZE...wooh!!! :)

ode to a friend

Sometimes when u have lost all hope
Sometimes when u are just out of scope
Sometimes when u want to stick around
sometimes when u think u cant cope
sometimes when u have fallen in love
sometimes when u run out of luck
sometimes when the doors are banged on your face
sometimes when u are out witted in the race
sometimes when there is no one to hold your hand
sometimes when u are in a far off land
sometimes when u want to be understood without speaking
sometimes when the fear is creeping
sometimes when u smile but u have to laugh
sometimes when u voluntarily cut your muffin into half
sometimes when u want to end
its in times like those that u see your friend bucking for u at the next bend….
Its in times like those that he wont let u give up….
Its in times like those that u would challenge life for yet another hiccup….
N yes now u are no more thinking of the end
This is not magic….but a six letter word called ‘f.r.i.e.n.d’

PROLOGUE

Men men these are wanted : everything else will be ready, but strong, vigorous, believing young men, sincere to the backbone, are wanted. A hundred such and the world becomes revolutionised.
- SWAMI VIVEKANANDA