face it!

During my journey from Delhi to Hyderabad, in the second half of November last, life showed one of it's ugliest faces. The enormity of the sight has haunted me ever since, and I bristle every time the scene replays in my head. (Harder hit perhaps, as most part of my holiday was spent indulging a cherished two year old, the contrast was too acute I guess!)

What can be worse than seeing an innocent, 2 year old, somersault to the beats of his mother's drum, and beg around saying 'be human, gimme some money!' (I wonder if she was his mother! Didn't look like!) It rent my heart to see his tender childhood crushed under such burdens, as beggary, exploitation and abuse! He'd perform, sobbing all the while, then sobbing still, he'd go around, begging--plate in hand. It was hard to make out if his sobs were genuine, or he'd been seasoned to perform them so well! Whatever the truth, it points to just one thing--if children are the future of a nation, and, if this is the state a lot of our country's children are in, our future, for sure, is in danger of being crushed at it's very advent!

I wish I'd taken a picture of the sorry sight! Just that I couldn't pull out my camera and take one...for reasons more than one! A picture got taken all the same! And, I am still unable to rid myself of it! You just saw it!

This conjures up another such sight--a girl, a pre-schooler's age, carrying, in her arms, a baby barely an year old, it's hand out-stretched, to beg--and another, yet another...!

Silence and Solitude,
so belong together,
all interlaced!
It's hard to tell which is what!

Silence and Solitude,
so belong together,
which begets the other,
it's hard to tell!

Silence and Solitude,
so belong together!
Yet, can of their own be...
Yet, can without the other be!

Ah! Silence and Solitude!

Strange it is!

Strange! yes strange it is, how our psyche work. We value little, what we have, and let go of it, very easily. Then, one fine day, when it's not all that available, we find ourselves pulled to it! Be it tree lined roads or our life styles!

Any real estate brochure / ad you see today, boasts of the housing society providing a fresh-n-green environment, roads lined with trees! Didn't we have all this before and lost it because we didn't care a bit! If you get it for free, you can't help not care about it! Spending money on it adds materialistic value to it and people pay that little extra (not so 'little' at times) to get it.

We all aspire to, and even get ourselves big, spacious houses, and then, we look for places to holiday in, where we can stay in huts or tents! The grass on the other side...!

Wherever you go in Hyderabad, these days, you see them blasting/drilling through/cutting rocks--yes the boulders that lent beauty to the terrain! And then, they pay for 'landscaping' for the colonies they build. Huge boulders forming an integral part of the landscaping! (This reminds me of something I wanna relate here. Recently, a patch of land was cleared of the boulders, and 'Hill View Villas' constructed there, looking over the rest of the boulder-strewn patch. Now, some months later, the 'Hill View' of the villas is being blasted off, to build 'Silicon Villas.' Will the former, now, be renamed 'Silicon Villas View Villas!' Funny eh!)

Know what! intake of Aloe Vera juice is quite popular with all the naturopathy enthusiasts these days! Well, this is hardly news! is it? Certainly not. Would we have given it an ear if it had been our granny asking us to have some ghritkumari juice? We'd have given her a "oh! not again" look--raised eye brows et al! Now, when you get the same 'ghritkumari' fashionably called 'Aloe Vera,' packaged as gel and juice and what not, with big price tags, who doesn't buy it--there'll be lots who'll drive down to the other end of the city to get it from! Well...what say you? 'Absence makes the heart grow fond,' or 'pine for what is naught,' I'm sorry! 'what is not'? Our reverting to organic foods is another sure mention here! (a full circle!)...need I say more?

"I say this, b'coz I luv you!"

If you feel it, say it--with words many,
or just a few, with your eyes or thoughts,
your silence too...
your gentle acts and gestures kind--in every way that you can find.
"They know it," you think, "I've said it before.
It's OK if I don't anymore."
OK is it? maybe...but they'd rather you say it.
I'm sure...try it...they'll love it!
Yes, they will--gentle words,
like gentle showers on scorched souls!

Delirious, come ecstasy or pain,
Reach out for it, ah! It's naught!
Clouds the eye, what's all mundane.
Let go! O! Let go!
What'll stay, why hold in vain!
Care! O care!
There's no again!

Touché

I just happened to read someone's views, in their blog, about Pakistan skipper Shoaib Malik's statement at the ICC World Twenty20 award ceremony after the final match. "...a disgustingly ridiculous remark which I would go to the extent of describing as communal or even racist," he said, "...Who the trash cares about your thanks-giving desires for the Muslim world, Mr. Malik? Hasn’t the newly appointed captain been told that he represented Pakistan - the nation in the T20 world cup, NOT Muslim - the religion." their blog went on, and "...Linking his appalling statement to the context of the match re-emphasizes the growing concern that many Indians, me being one of them, have: Do a majority of Muslims pick the religion over the nation (and humanity, talking at a larger scale)?"

"I want to thank everyone back home in Pakistan and Muslims all over the world. Thank you very much and I'm sorry that we didn't win, but we did give our 100 per cent," is what Malik said, at the presentation ceremony.

Didn't the auther step into the very shoes of the person whose remarks he just described as 'racist,' and 'ridiculous.' Why! I'd like to ask, can't we bring ourselves to rise above such trivialities, as labeling people? This blogger's thoughts, I'd say reek as much of communalism as did Malik's remark! More so indeed, for, Maliks didn't have a chance to 'preview,' and 'edit' what he said!

All this always brings me back to the same thought...why can't we put it behind our backs! Why can't we accept Pakistanis and Indians as we accept people of other countries! Isn't it political play or lust for power (whatever you choose to call it,) that's behind all the ill that ever emanated from these countries for the other!

It'd help purge our societies and religions am sure, if we, the common people, at least the so called 'educated,' lot rise above this all! Ofcourse! I include myself too in it.

...they'll come to me.

I miss them so, those thoughts of mine, that irked me till I was sleepless. 

Now that I sit back and reflect, they visit me so less frequently. 

Care and worry, the daily businesses of life, 

have eroded them from me. 

Bring back O Wind! O Moon! 

please bring back my estranged thoughts to me. 

I'll tell them that "this is life, and here you can't always have company."

You need some time to think your thoughts, 

and know what can't and what can be. 

Move on we must, all of us, 

and partake of what life calls 'destiny.' 

Move on we must, all of us, 

milestones we are not to be. 

Yes! move on ahead, change with the change. 

That's what life expects, of you, and of me.

When they have learnt these ways of life, 

I'll let them move on, I'll let them be. 

For now, oh! please, bring them to me. 

I need to handle them tenderly. 

Those thoughts, so young, may wither soon, 

if left as yet, to weather life's savagery. 

No! force them not, against their will. 

Let them, of their own, come to me. 

I miss them so, yes I do, 

lying sleepless, though they don't irk me. 

Miss them so, yes I do, 

yet I respect their entity. 

Force them not, those thoughts of mine, 

of their will, someday, they'll come to me.

Kaleidoscope

Most of us would have been taught about this tube-shaped optical device, in our middle school Physics curriculum, as one of the many uses of mirrors, as an application of diffusion of light and reflection. Little did we realise then, how much our lives resemble it.

Life is a perfectly set pattern of glass fragments, every tiny piece in it contributing to it's 'perfectness,' till time gives it a twist and unsettles the pieces. The pieces, they fall into place again, set into a pattern, colorful as the earlier one, yet very different. Old order gives way to new, and we find ourselves, part of an entirely new world. Our lives set into a new pattern, almost in the blink of an eye. We look back amazed--marvelling at the ever-changing face of life.

It all seems unbelievable now, what was reality sometime ago! So unimaginable, yet true, for, it has left an indelible mark on our memories. We'd hardly have emerged from our wonderment, gaping still, when it's time for another shake, time to see life take-on other hues and set into yet another pattern.

And life moves on...