Redemption

He woke up with a start when the alarm tone sent disturbing waves to his eardrum. He had promised his daughter for a movie that day, but had also assured his fortunate few friends that he would join them for a trek to the steep forests. He had dreamt of trekking each time his friends fantasized and pontificated of their experiences. He hurried to the bathroom to get fresh and left a sticky note on the fridge door to his wife, that he would be back by nightfall. He entered his daughter’s room and kissed her on her forehead. The birds from the cage in that room-her pets seemed to be uncaring.

He joined his friends at the woods; his two friends bragging to each other on what food they had got for the day .They walked at an equable pace to the forest and could discern that they had stepped into it already as the trees grew thicker. The distant sounds of running streams merged with the sound of the birds chirping. The morning sun was playing hide and seek with the clouds, as the cold breeze swept across their faces. With silent steps, they enjoyed the environs of the forest and watched as the lives in forest slowly began to wake up from their slumber. They walked until afternoon and after their legs started crying, they camped at a nearby stream .Digging into their backpacks they had mouthfuls of their food and dozed off to sleep in the tent. He opened his eyes after what seemed to be an hour and joined his friends at the river bed. His two friends were reminiscing on their experiences to impress their new boss, also debating on her age.

After two hours of lazy talk on all the work that had to be scheduled at the office for the week to come, they took turns capturing each others pictures on a camera with a mixture of moods. After a while, they heard lurking footsteps at the nearby clearing. The footsteps grew louder and louder when all their senses began hunting for the source of noise.

One by one, the men appeared as though they had materialized out of thin air. Clad uniformly in their own code, each one of them pointed their weapons towards them, some rifles and some shotguns. The three friends stood motionless not able to ascertain what had just happened. The dark men handcuffed each of them. They wriggled to set themselves free from the handcuffs. From the hushed voices and accusations, it later became clear that one of the members of the gang had fled and let out the information about their hideout, to the police for his remuneration .

They mauled them and abused them asking for their identity while they began to search their backpack, the tent and at last their pockets, but to no avail. A heavy gargantuan figure pretending to be their boss ordered “Rip them fully, search thoroughly”. He stood there sternly as one of his friends was wrested a few steps to the front. The dowdy hands of an obsequious looking servant pulled down his undergarments. There was a huge uproar of laughter at the back. He stood there aghast watching his friend spit on the man’s face and kick him on his groin. The servant fell on the floor squealing with pain. The next moment, a shot from the gun deafened his ears as he watched the lifeless corpse of his stupid best friend drop to the floor. His face was splashed with his friend’s warm blood and perennial paroxysms of pain blasted through him as he began fighting his tears.

The two friends became numb, afraid and tensed at the same time, not sure of how to react. After the same checking was done unto them, they were taken to an old dilapidated building and locked into two separate rooms. He had had too much for a day. The stains of blood on his face were still wet. He wept into the night and fell asleep thinking whether he would ever go back to his family.

A platter of food was pushed from under the door in the morning. He grabbed it and gulped its contents. The dull silence of the rest of the day, the loss of his friend, thoughts about his family, all made him every bit uncomfortable. He sulked about the promise made to his daughter. He thought about the moments spent with his friends, the Sunday games and the weekend beers…….

He spent the next two days of solitary confinement in the same room ,a complete void without his friends or family. After four days, the food stopped. Water was spilled from under the door. He closed his eyes and licked the water to wet his throats. Fighting the tears that made their appearance for the second time that night, he kept telling himself “I must stay alive……….for my family”.

From the bright sun rays piercing through the windows, it was clear that it was noon and the day was hot outside. He woke up with his head pounding, realizing that he had probably overslept. He sat upright and began examining the room for some water. The trees outside began swaying and the dry leaves rustled and he could hear two helicopters approaching the building . He stood up and ran to the high raised window jumping to catch a glimpse of what was happening outside. The military men had encroached the forest and had surrounded the building.

As they began screaming threats to the gang though the loudspeakers, he heard hurried footsteps and incessant commotion inside the building. For that moment, his happiness knew no bounds and he thanked god for this unexpected blessing. He would finally be able to go back to his family…

The helpless smugglers were hauled from inside the building and apprehended. The door creaked and a group of over anxious military men pushed the door wide open. He raised his hands and started explaining himself ,panting for breath. They said “ We saw a dead body in the neighboring room. Is he your friend? “ . The paroxysms of pain erupted again. He ran to the next room and saw a thing made of bones and pale skin. It was his dead friend lying in one corner of the room. He must have been deprived of food since the day they were captured. This time there were no tears in his eyes, but dead silence in his mind. The god who had feigned to help him had betrayed him again…

He was taken to the military headquarters and asked to give a full explanation on the incidents that happened from the beginning. He was left free that morning, after a thorough investigation…………..

He came home that day and set the birds free from their cage. He had no idea how he would start the next day. …….

Compunction

How am i to be dauntless?

When you hew my desires to pieces?
Don't let me down to this blinding day;
With its trials and tribulations have come unending dismay.
Tell me how to greet the morning rays,
Tell me how to weave blissful days.
Don't let me lose hope in you,
Oh sweet lord, i bow before thee..

Yes, these silent words of prayers are only remaining now that a series of hostile, unfriendly events has hit me hard. They say behind every difficulty that god makes us shoulder, He has a reason. He might most certainly have it, but he'd better let us know the reason. It would surely lessen the brunt.


Most of the times, happiness also has its trail of little sorrow and every sorrow, its own litle happiness. Life is balanced that the division of happiness by sorrow or vice versa would give a precise unity..

Silent reflection also tells me that every life situation, every event or a happening and every aspect of life has two sides-just like the head and tail of the coin. Don't know why our vision gets blurred with only one side,almost every time........................


Ps: Contradictions are welcome.

The Key

Prenote:

The following post has the potential to enervate you in case, you are an impatient person.

There is one thing I like about my cellular device, the text messages. Oh come on! I like anything that inspires me. Not earlier than two days ago, I received an insightful text message forward… and here it is , verbatim.

Who do you think should be a world leader among these three?

Mr. A-He had friendship with bad politicians, consults astrologers, has two wives, a chain smoker, drinks eight to ten times a day.

Mr.B- He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps till noon, used opium in college and drinks whisky every evening.

Mr.C He is a decorated war hero, a vegetarian, doesn’t smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.

You would want Mr. C to be the leader

But

Mr.A was Franklin Roosevelt!

Mr.B was Winston Churchill!

And

Mr.C was Adolf Hitler

Strange but true.

Man’s innate hunger for power and influence, domination is insatiable. But the hunger for knowledge may go ephemeral once his plates are filled. Any field of knowledge can be in common terms coined as SCIENCE-the awareness of how the world around us works. To be at the forefront of any field, yes …experience and knowledge are the keys. But there is yet another finer and refined commodity that reigns supreme-Imagination.

Formal Education can preach us how to think straight within the strict borders of a particular body of knowledge.But it is only when the fire of imagination is stoked that inventors are born. Knowledge springs out of stimulated imagination as a mirrored response to one’s craving or desire. Knowledge has boundaries but imagination is boundless. In the vast realm of imagination, you are the king and you are the servant. You Don’t have to play the game by the rules. One can venture into any pursuit being ridiculously creative.

Tomorrow’s technology can subvert today’s. But we can never deny that technology has stemmed from science, which in turn has stemmed from persistent imagination. Roosevelt or Churchill could not rule, if they were imprisoned by their shortcomings. Edison could imagine thousand ways to accomplish the needful, lucky enough to have his eureka moment at last.

At the heart of imagination, resides genius.

If Necessity is the mother of Invention, I would dogmatize Imagination is its great grandmother.

WE, THE SCREENAGERS

I have got to log onto Facebook. Wait! Let me tweet first. No! it’s been one full day since I hit my orkut profile. Oh! Am I busy?

One of the biggest technology addictions has drugged my brain superlatively that I don’t keep track of mortal time anymore….! Why is my life revolving around the computer screen doing nothing but (facebook)ing and Orkutting? Should I call it the era of social networking?

As any social human being would rightly say, Social Networking is a great tool that creates a virtual space for friends. It would help you find your old friends and make new friends. It can also help you chat with friends all across the world. FACEBOOK of all,has enraptured the youth and captivated their minds.

But on the flip side ,when I see some of my friends so involved into their profiles over the mobile phones, right in the middle of the class lecture, it makes me ponder over it freshly again. Facebook has now gained enough fame and attention from the student community also, superseding the lawful books collecting dust on their shelves. Somehow, everybody around me loves to update their status messagesevery minute with something catchy and wait endlessly for reactions. When it becomes obsessively compulsive as such, wherein every soul is uploading photos, and giving instantaneous crazy status updates on competition, it loses it’s lusture. Being hunched over the laptop for hours may look good, but gradually the novelty dwindles. Moreover, despite being networked with pals all day, why do we still struggle with feelings of loneliness? Is it because we don’t have too many REAL friends? Are we so different from our real-selves when in front of the computer screens? We put most of our time and energy into it, and yet, to no avail? Are we prioritizing our online presence more than our real life presence?

I feel it is safe to maintain that minimal distance, even between the closest of relationships ,lest we all know that familiarity breeds contempt. Let us not turn so over-extrovert that we exhibit every phase of our life, every thought and every action. Life wouldn’t be interesting that way. Because even the stars would not have twinkled if they were very near to us!

PS: These words have churned out from the inspiration derived from Asha Choudhary

God's Own Country

I barely managed to convince myself to join the excursion organized by fellow friends to Kerala. That it was the final year of my undergraduate studies and I don’t venture to distant lands often - must harvest this opportunity ,was what appealed the most to me. Travelling and trekking being two of my most cherished passions, something inside me was calling out an ultimatum-not to miss it. So, I acceded.

Our encroachment into kerala began on the rainy evening of 18^th September 2010 on a bus named Asian Travels. We travelled for almost 24 hours to reach our first destination-Munnar. Both the bus and its driver could not contain our excitement , the noise, screams and antakshari sessions. So they did expedite in reaching the destination.

Travelling from the bottom of the hill to the acme, we could feel the temperature dropping slowly as we ascended every feet. We went for a brief walk along the misty roads that night exploiting every opportunity to capture ourselves and the sceneries with our camera lens. The next Morning was a very special morning as it gave me all that I expected from kerala in a single shot. We explored the length and breadth of Munnar in jeeps listening to some Tamil and Malayalam songs ( I could not discern their meaning but it was fun watching my tamil and mallu friends singing aloud ). All the mountains were clad with a blanket of tea plantations. I metamorphasized into a fanatical person when I saw the limpid streams dancing and sliding from the cloud masked mountain tops. After going through all the avid places of Munnar, we ended up telling each other fervidly-“ Macha, I am going to marry a mallu girl and settle off here!” . Ha! What a timely wish!

Munnar holds a very special place for me ,not just because it was a new land , but that was the only place so far where I said to myself-“ I am gonna come here a million more times!”. The tea plantations are so abound there that it made me sit back and think that the whole world drinks tea that grows in Kerala. The whole world breathes the oxygen from Kerala. It’s the kind of a feeling that you get when all the sceneries and wallpapers on your desktop materialize into realness and are calling out for you for a warm stay in their bosom.

The second day we reached “Lake Heaven Island Resorts”( do you catch the name?:)) at Alappi ( Allapuzha) at 12:15 am in the morning. After sleeping for a mere three hours, I went peddling over the waters near the resort, also went boating listening to the Malayalam poems of the boat owner. It was the first picture perfect resort that i ever stayed in.

We all returned after a brief sojourn, each one of us with jocund moods ,depositing some happiness in each other’s memories. I was, for most obvious reasons pleased with myself for at least making a half hearted decision to travel to Kerala, lest I would have missed the best days in close proximity with nature. My physical body is back to Bangalore, but my inner self is still there in Kerala , lingering in the abyss of serenity.

Dear newly weds, heed my words. Nature’s greatest temptations are slumbering in a land called Kerala. If you are googling your brains for honeymoon spots, then choose no other place than Kerala (Munnar,Alappi,Thekady and Wayanad). I promise you won’t regret.

Dear techies going bald over the daily workload, if you care for yourself, take a week’s break and venture into Kerala. Let your lungs drink deeply the fresh air from the lush mountains and let your mind know what peace means.

And my dearest fellow youth , craving for some adventure? Begin “Mission Kerala”. It is nature at its resplendent best!

Railing along Relationships

It is my steadfast resolve now, not to switch on the TV, until late afternoons. Watching regional NEWS channels early in the mornings has become seemingly akin to refraining myself from a good start for the day.

I sat glued to the TV last night watching Red Alert- a show reporting crimes in the city. I declined to sleep, wondering as to where do such shows get enough substance to muster, that they have made it to the list of daily shows on TV. This very (un)fortunate morning, the TV screen exhibited a ghastly frame of a man killed by his own friends, in greed of his money. Furthermore, the daily newspapers are very firmly nurturing a ritual of reporting crimes such as a husband/wife murdering his/her spouse. That apart, romances have spoilt, people are growing perfidious, and marriages are broken. The forts built on friendships this day are collapsing at the stroke of next sunrise.

I now try to delve deep to the very roots anticipating a reason for crime rates that are looming large in the social and personal lives with friends and family. Unequivocally, the answer struck, like it always does when I have my usual dose of tea. Perhaps the answers to the most profound questions are the simplest ones, per se. My sure shot answer is the absence of LOVE. The only virtue that has remained sublime to this day and will remain that way forever is love-the mother of all good virtues. Only we are moving away from it. It is surely the foundation of any happy relationship. As most of us are aware, it would be inane on our parts to mistake love as a righteous property belonging only to those celebrating Valentine’s Day. It is as much a rightful property to those who celebrate Father’s day, Mother’s day, Friendship day and Teachers day (you can add on to the list!). Love has as many editions as the Encyclopedia and as many versions as the World History. Perhaps even more. It is part of every human’s pristine dreams even without his knowledge.

At this point, I confide that I haven’t read the celebrated love stories like that of Romeo and Juliet. So, I am not ware of Shakespearean version of love. Yet, I feel the urge to disclose my understanding and analysis on this virtue- which has moved the world.

Love in any relationship is not just giving. It is judicious withholding as well. It is judicious arguing, struggling, confronting, urging, pushing and pulling in addition to comforting. And it just comes back to you in precise proportions to the amount you give. We all work to achieve and realize our dreams in life, be it material or something higher than that. Any such achievement is empty, if it slips away without your loved ones acknowledging it. A person denied of any form of love, would die an early death, being a loner. Without love, we are just lumps of blood, bones and muscles walking the planet in vain. What say you?

The entire thesis on love is flawed if I do not quote Mr. Scott.M.Peck, one of the famed psychologists. “Love is not the very same as dependency. Dependency may appear to be love because it is a force that causes people to fiercely attach themselves to one another. But in actuality, it is not love. It is a form of antilove. It seeks to receive rather than to give. It works to trap and constrict rather than liberate. Ultimately it destroys rather than build relationships”. How very true!

So, if you ever see people merely depending upon you, help them judiciously out of humanitarian values. But if they use you or misuse you in any form, throw them to the sharks!

Perhaps, there is more to it. Perhaps I have just seen a drop from an entire ocean called love. Albeit, my hands were itching to vent it outJ

PS: If this post has played its part in enlightening you, then I accept cash, cheque and DD as a token of …………………………………………………………..loouuvve!

SMACK THAT!

Prenote:

This post goes out for the South Indian youth , with due respect to their individual taste of music.

Even if you have a bad voice, never mind. Sing your heart out,even if it reminds people of a pregnant goat!

I have a faint remembrance of reading somewhere that music plucks the strings of our heart, and everytime i sing, i prove it right. My taste in music roots back to M.S.Subbalakshmi's renowned Venkatesha Suprabhatam(VS). Now, i am not surprised if anybody comments that i am a shithead for having called VS, my taste of music. I am apathetic to such comments from others. Nevertheless, I cant help it. I grew up with keerthans and devotional carnatic songs being called "music" at home.

Keerthans are the compositions of eminent devotees of lord Vishnu, namely Purandaradasa, Kanakadasa and Vadiraja. Purandaradasa was the first composer to include morals on ordinary daily life in song compositions. For all the enormous influence that he had on carnatic music, musicologists call him "Sangeetha Pitamaha". Based on one of Kanakadasa's compositions, it is interpreted that after he got severely injured in a war, and was miraculously saved, he quit his profession as a warrior and devoted his life on composing music and literature with philosophy explained in common man's language. I feel that their erudition on the Almighty and the life of a common man is astounding because of its simplicity.

In a performance centered world as ours , we do not have time to fraternize with our own brothers or sisters, let alone neighbors and relatives; pray to god, be it even for a few minutes; take a walk in the woods; to really stay connected with our inner-selves. Amidst such a scenario, i do not think music would serve its purpose if it just gave you some adrenaline to dance a few random steps in a disco. There is more to it. Music is attributed to have healing powers. It is gateway from the earth to the heavens.

I have been observant enough to see people avert the carnatic songs , just because such songs are not fashionable. As Indians, we are happier with western artists like Eminem even if we cannot understand half of their songs , when they hit our ears for the first time.

For me, keerthans have given some of my best moments of ecstasy, alleviated my sorrows, apart from inducing devotion towards god. Do try them. It would even give some room to nourish the moribund spirituality within us.

" We are not human beings with spiritual experiences,

We are spiritual beings with human experiences."

-Kahlil Gibran

Does that ring a bell? :)