Living for a Dream

What will I be living for

If I sever from my dreams

Today I make a compromise

Tomorrow another sacrifice

All for what

To later see

The difference

What I dreamed and what I am

To ponder whether

I open my eyes or just let them shut

Like darkness in spirit

Induced reality

If I open them, acerbic

Dread will shroud

Insane I will be or think of others

And think we live in a world

Where dreams don’t fulfill

And all the stars, the dust and galaxies

Will be there still

Like magic

What an utter ignorance!

My spirit would cry, if I go

Without having lived

Without having dreamed

The Monk

One fine day walking through the woods of pine
Contemplating on what were the faults of mine
Thinking through the dilemma of life
Each thought as sharp as a stab of a knife
I opened my book of memories dark
Of deaths, despair that left deep marks
Of how the accident claimed my folks
The pain of loss an only child would know
Not even a month from the big black day
I was abducted, all of age eleven to say
What else would you expect from a family of poor
No friend, no relative, not even a soul to care

Ruthlessly they beat me, morning and evening
And made me beg in the distant street wings
Although an open road, all doors were shut
If tried to escape, the food supply would cut
I had become a stone, tears in no eye
Begging sightlessly as the world passed by
Felt like being removed like my parents from the world
In whose arms I would play, eat and sleep curled
Who is there now, to listen to my plea?
Is this the way my life's supposed to be?

My young toe stubbed and snapped me back to present
I saw a temple of Buddha at the other end
I entered and found His statue beaming with content
And remembered how I managed to escape the brunt
I ran one day with all I had
And catapulted beyond the limits of the bad
Some pious souls found me crying in the alley
packed some food and sent me to the valley
Now here I am in front of Buddha's smiling face
Telling me He had called me in His own way and pace
That moment I can't forget how surreal it looked
Something leaped inside in manifolds and shook
I realized that the ship of doubts had sunk
I dropped on my knees and became a monk

A Random Tale of Jim the Guide

It was a fine Sunday morning in the Paris street, filled with hustle bustle and Jim was as busy as a bee. “Mercí Madamé” said Jim politely as he accepted his fee along with some appreciable tip for guiding the tourist around the Eiffel Tower. She had remarked him to be very fluent in French. This got Jim to think of the past days when he was a farmer’s little boy. He was in a company of crude lads who pick-pocketed unsuspecting travellers near the rail station in outskirts of Germany. The earnings varied day to day but made the day quite adventurous. It had become a daily chore until one day an uptight big bellied man caught hold of him. Jim couldn’t forget the day he was thrown into the juvenile prison and his poor folks cried and begged the local police. His poor parents left teary, his friends a long faced lot, as the officer refused to release the ‘mackerel’ issuing the accompanists a tight warning. 

He was forced to do lessons in German and maths. He resented it so much that he turned sullen and rebellious, which was a way to express his anguish over the lost freedom. He did like watching the T.V however, but the comic film that enticed him was in some foreign language. He had a moment of determination to be able to understand the film, so he requested the authorities to arrange for the lessons in that language. He was given a green signal and soon he was taking lessons in French. There was no turning back since then. It was not long ago when he travelled to the city of Paris and became a local guide. He had the whole city on his tips, and the tourists just loved him for his passionate narrative. Snapped back into the present, he saw the tip he got. Another night of good, warm food and he might just also hit the small pub. He was content with it all and lived a golden life for a poor farmer’s boy.

 

The Spooky Metro Chronicle

Coming back from my school in one March evening, it must be around 5 pm, I witnessed something that still shakes my knees! I usually commute by metro rail. My home and school is just 3 stations apart and the ride goes by quick. As I entered the metro that day, the usual hustle bustle was missing. It was all quiet. As I took 3 flights of stairs, I couldn’t help but notice the pale grey station walls. On a usual day, even in off hours, there are so many people passing by, that my eyes rest on person to person as I manoeuvre them with long strides. Other days I’m just struggling to find my tiny metro card from my bag so that I save time on entry. But that day, grey, tall, monumental walls hung there as if I had escaped into some medieval era. It surely felt I had escaped ‘my world’ as through the open station, the world seemed cloudy and pale contrary to the bright sky that I left outside. Anyway, I walked and to the checking booth. I slipped my bag on the conveyor belt that went through an x-ray machine and stepped up the pedestal for checking. The city had an outbreak of swine flu and so, many people wore the protection masks, but the mask that the police woman was wearing looked like a gas mask. I was amused! Immediately my mind flashed some horrible images of war stricken world and hardcore metal videos with horror content synced with ‘music’. My imagination is vivid and ideas and images (especially horror) flash through, bombarding my braincells with innumerable possibilities that too in seconds. My imagination works the quick and the best when I’m in panic, making matters worse and so I’m easily afraid. But I just shrugged and moved on getting in and on the platform.

There was no soul! The curved tin shed shut the station like a catacomb. There wasn’t even a single bird to flock a feather, unlike every other day. I know it was an off hour but not that much… I had travelled in metro at 6:30 in the morning and about 11 at night and still had seen a few people at the station. But there I was, alone at a vast metro platform!

After a minute wait, to my relief, arrived a train. Standing on women platform section, I got into the first box. A woman, finally, I saw on entry seated diagonally across the bench I was going to assume. She must have been in her 50s. Her short, greying hair a little messed up, she was wearing a printed Indian suit, having no belongings whatsoever. Huge glasses resting on her plump face. I could only see her side profile. Things were spooky already and suddenly the compartment lights started flickering. I gave out a little chuckle, because it was such a cliché! (Yeah, laughter is my standard reflex to unusual feelings, next to perplexity, of course) Then I suddenly grew nervous as I sensed the woman had heard me laughing by myself. She turned her face toward me a little. Her spectacle lenses glared light, almost as if they were the source. I made a poker face and looked a little away hoping she didn’t think of me as a schizophrenic or something. A station had just passed and she got up. I thought hers might be the next station but why stand just now? The coach was vacant after all. She got up and started a bit toward me and supporting herself on a pole, faced me. I was witnessing through the side of my eyes, when I turned towards her.

A thunderous horror took me, sending shock-waves through my almost trembling body. Time dilated and a second seemed so long. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Standing next to me a perfectly normal woman save she didn’t have eyes! No, she wasn’t blind. She just didn’t have the eye sockets. Just plain flat skin in place of the visual wonder. The specimen ‘looked’ at me as if it were scrutinizing me with its thermoceptic skin. The added image of the spectacles made the ‘glance’ formidable in some description of fearless degree. I bet a thousand thoughts per minute bombarded in my brain, my heart almost beating in my neck, my body gone limp, thinking of the dreaded possibilities. Those two minutes felt like an eternity as if I was face to face with my death. The woman didn’t utter a word. Came next station, as lone and grey, the woman got off without much thought. It was all just impossible what I witnessed. Just so impossible! She was carrying nothing, not even a token, let alone a cane. And yet she smoothly performed her locomotion. She got off and the doors shut. I took a glance to the end of the train and still no soul. I looked from the window toward the newly found mutant, only to watch her perform her last gig as she moved and vanished into thin air. No trace of her and the train started moving. Recovering from the shock a bit, I took to immense religiousness, as I prayed to every god I knew (in India there’s no dearth) to just get me home safe.

I got off the next station and rushed to the exit. As I descended the stairs with pace, I dared to look back just once at the cold, lonely hung station, my steps brisking towards the warm shiny world, my world.

THE ESSENCE OF REAL FREEDOM

Imagine there are no borders, no countries. Imagine a free earth where there is peace and harmony. Where there is no bloodshed, no war and white doves flying across a free sky. But when we are snapped by the reality, barbed borders arise like the Great Wall of China. Even after so much interchange of ideology and cultures and with media playing a major role in connecting people, why still the world map shows the borders?

The answer lies hidden in the deeply rooted instinct of the dominant and territorial human. The natural wish to control and to possess had paved way for the ‘heroic warriors’ who set out to conquer the world. It has given rise to the many likes of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Suleiman, Julius Caesar to name some. The idea of division originates here.

In the times of kings and queens, there was an absolute control.But today it has been replaced by administrations and different forms of government. they are just rotten rituals where masses of chaotic people decide who should rule them. The chosen ones in turn harass those masses and misuse the power. A small bunch of people is capable of making developments for themselves. A little larger bunch can think on a global level. But what is the need to be enclosed in a fence for that?

The idea must sound strange but true- till we dare to drop the administration, it is impossible to drop the borders. The people have become so dependent on the system to govern them, that they have become servile. They have become accustomed to it. If there is no one to control them then they will become free. They fear freedom because with freedom comes responsibility. Responsibility to remain self disciplined, to maintain equality and to avoid the wrong. Because if they will hurt the other, they will get hurt in turn and then there will be no jury to protect them or to solve the matter. If you take responsibility of your action, then you owe no one. No one is superior. Here politics dies. Everyone is self controlled and self sufficient.

But still there exist nations. People surrounded by a boundary hold one flag, sing one song and are highly patriotic. Patriotism brings with it a lot of irony. For instance, in an encounter all the soldiers died. Later in India the martyrs were honoured for killing the Pakistani terrorists and the in Pakistan, their martyrs were honoured for killing Indian terrorists. What a waste of life!

People come and go but the line of control is immortalized. There is an enormous amount of money that is spent on the defence of these borders. The very economy can be utilized on developing poor lives if there are no countries. The highest of the minds fight for the throne but it is the common man who is fooled to death every time a war is triggered. Even after sixty years of independence we see a significant hierarchy that belongs to the first prime minister of India in the Indian politics.

Over the years it is noticed that the boundaries are rubbed and redrawn. Only recently China started showing north eastern states of India on its map. India and Pakistan still share cold vibes upon the issue of Kashmir. The borders will continue to contract and expand till the inconsistent human reigns. There will be bloodshed and battles till the man is the ruler. It must be understood that the earth is a gift of God to all, thus it must be accepted by all. No one man is capable of ruling it but together all of us. Every soul owns it, every soul is the king.

If we really see, this earth is so beautiful and enormous that everyone can live in it. Each soul’s need would be fulfilled. But the human doesn’t seem to spare it from his ugliness. He has divided this earth like an apple pie killing its spirit. When the rivers flow, snow falls, sun shines irrespective of countries upon the faces of its children then who are we, the mere mortals, to draw a line on the ground with a sword? Let us all adopt a peace of mind and there will emerge an earth without countries and a world without borders.

The Life’s Uncertainty: A Thought Beyond…

This life is all about uncertainty. From the day we are born to the day we die, we ask ourselves a million questions regarding this great phenomenon called life. But not all are able to quench this persistent thirst. Not all are able to break through the mysticism of their existence. What you are experiencing may be a reality or it may be a very subtly laid out illusion, one can never tell. As Albert Einstein once said “Reality is just an illusion but a persistent one”. So, does the human possess great powers? Does he have the potential to change his fate and turn the world around and make his way?

It is well known that we, the humans are not the centre of the universe. The cosmos has been here before us and may be even after us. It is the universe itself that created the ‘living’ beings. And when all the stars, moons, planets and other heavenly objects to which the human looks with an awe, follow the rules of the universe, then this mere assumption by us mortals that we can exercise free will is quite questionable!

The way we are born, the circumstances that we face and even the way our brain neurons work and function is apparently not in our hands. It might be possible that we live in a myth that we own our power. The question is not essentially about destiny versus karma perhaps about what we stand in this infinity. The one question that usually bothers is that are we, the human race developed enough to understand this universe?

Just imagine yourself as a small micro-organism. Being such a primitive living creature, you will lack most of your senses that have developed over a billion years. And now imagine being such a creature and trying to comprehend the universe. From that point of view it may appear that you are experiencing universe in every way possible. But actually you can’t see the universe, you can’t smell the universe, you can’t taste it, or even hear it. You are just dependent on your partially developed senses to know your stimuli and you won’t be even able to imagine the possible ways in which this universe can manifest itself. Your perception is limited to your growth. The same might be happening to the humans as well. We cannot even think of the possible manifestations that the universe might have and what are the various possible ways to capture and understand it. The point is that we still lack understanding capacity and we might be just moving around in darkness clinging onto our “beliefs and values” blindly. It reminds me of the quote “All I know is that I know nothing” by Socrates.

Everyday new scientific theories are proposed that can be compared to a science fiction. But somehow we have a reason to believe that this universe whatever it is, is undoubtedly even more remarkable and interesting that all the science fictions and startling theories. Something exceptional must come out of this exceptionally enormous universe. And who knows, it might be the cosmos’ own will to reveal its true face to the desperate human life when it wants. Till then nothing of concrete can be achieved since we owe a lot, nay our whole to the cosmos. At last I would like to end with what I said first. This life is all about uncertainty…