A thoughtful abstraction

The ones you remember are the ones you cherish. Everything else is forgotten. What lies in between perhaps doesn't matter, the extremities have every chance of living eternity. Life may just be unfair but is that what you will remember in the end? Of thousands of face, images and clustered emotions.. what exactly you think will bring you calm? Past, present, future.. what will you loathe more; chances that you missed or the attempts that threw you off the cliff? Head on collision with the authenticity of life.

You might say life's unfair, true sometimes, but its indisputably genuine too. Like a gray dull sky that goes violent, or like a reddening sun. They say... to feel isn't as difficult as to think, but what's the difference? They ask.. what's harder to put in; questions or answers? When a lad from a lower middle class family travels in air for the first time, what is that one thing which is more obvious? Joy? Fear, diffidence?

60 Seconds...

60 seconds between us. 6 meters ahead of me. Living in a same enclosure, this is what separates us. You, me and these 60 seconds, that's all. Now we are not like those people... they have so much time you know. They can actually go back to that debris and isolate every single decision they took. They can look for the shadows of people they lost, and try to retract images. In their lives, they can bring out their old muddy sculptures back from their subconscious store rooms and wait for the day when everything shall come alive.

We can't do it, can we? They are after me but I don't care really. I'm just about these 60 seconds between us. You got to know this. Just like my past, I can relate with those people and those places. But I can't go back. Glory awaits me.

Isn't this a beautiful thought? Whatever I do today, my love, my desires and all those aspirations... all that is about to come...

I can't be there before you. You got to protect me. Take decisions and act. To make things work for me.

And you have 60 seconds!

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Note: I believe this post, originally written on April 25 2009, is one of the finest. Of whatever I have written over the years.

Walls

There are moments... when you stand still and do nothing; you see through the window, see through the lives of people inside and around you... trying to figure the dynamics that have governed..

And then you gradually learn to value... its only the spirit that is immortal.

There are moments... when rotten red bricks begin to speak to you.. But you have to listen; they tell remarkable stories... stories of fanatical lovemaking, stories of atrocious bloodshed.. depends on your own circumstances... as whatever you bring in, these rotten red bricks are going to give it back. These walls have thousands of stories buried inside... what you search is all what you'll find..

She's with you...

You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfect - you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break - her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.

Hereafter

"After hearing the miracle of my voice, you might think, "Who cares what you earned when you were alive? Tell us what you can see. Is there life after death? Where's your soul? What about Heaven and Hell? What is death like? Are you in pain?" You're right, people are extremely curious about the Afterlife. Maybe you've heard the story of the man who was so driven by this curiosity that he roamed among soldiers in battlefields. He sought a man who had died and returned to life amid the wounded struggling for their lives in pools of blood, a soldier who could tell him about the secrets of the Otherworld. But one of Tamerlane's warriors, taking the seeker for one of the enemy, cleared him in half with a smooth stroke of his scimitar, causing him to conclude that in the Hereafter man is split in two.

Nonsense! Quite the opposite, I'd even allege that souls divided in life merge in the Hereafter. Contrary to the claims of sinful infidels who have fallen under the sway of the Devil, there is indeed another world, thank God, and the proof is that I am speaking to you from here. I've died, but as you can plainly tell, I haven't ceased to be. Granted, I must confess, I haven't encountered the rivers flowing beside the silver and gold kiosks of Heaven, the broad-leaved trees bearing plump fruit and the beautiful virgins mentioned in the Glorious Koran-though I do very well recall how often and enthusiastically I made pictures of those wide-eyed houris described in the chapter "That Which Is Coming." Nor is there a trace of those rivers of milk, wine, fresh water and honey described with such flourish, not in the Koran, but by visionary dreamers like Ibn Arabi. But I have no intention of tempting the faith of those who live rightly through their hopes and visions of the Otherworld, so let me declare that all I've seen relates specifically to my own very personal circumstances. Any believer with even a little knowledge of life after death would know that a malcontent in my state would be hard-pressed to see the rivers of Heaven"....

Chapter 1 - I Am a Corpse

My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk

Personal Note: May not be an easy read, But I would recommend you to read this book. Its mystical, rich and stunningly beautiful.

Savor Life!

It was a cold, blustery December evening; the year was 2007 I think. Me and few of my colleagues occupied doing something so usual; squashing breasts and breaking legs at some local roadside (dhaba) restaurant, mapping grandeur of our futuristic but nonexistent start-ups. Slightly irrational, majorly unrefined and completely unconventional.. everything appeared so normal. And then, we felt one baba standing at some distance from us. He was in his advanced age. Short, ragged and severely unprotected, perhaps unfed for at least a couple of days. Soon we realized that he wasn't really a beggar, as his pushcart was parked a couple of meters away from his place. Calm and quiet, we didn't know for how long he had been here watching us without uttering a single word.

Friend: "Jii baba, kuch chahiye?"

Baba without saying anything singled 'one' with his finger

My friend read his clue and offered one naan to him

At that very moment, one middle age woman equally ragged came rushing towards us and stopped right next to baba. This usually happens that when you try to help someone poor, the others (either really deprived or mere impostors) who always have their eyes in, sprint towards you to try out their chances. I won't call it a business but this can be one way of living. And something similar had happened here..

Woman: "Beta, kuch roti dila do, ghar pe bachey bhukey hain.."

My friend looked at us and smiled.. "Lo bhaiye.. aik aur.. Jao amma maaf kero!"

What happened then came crashing on us, trouncing our intellectually inflated minds, humbling us to our deepest core..

That baba who appeared so helpless, who quite evidently seemed starving, who himself had asked us for food, tore into two that single piece of bread we had offered him and extended it to that woman. It was stunning, I can not explain the sheer power of that moment. He smiled at her, kept his half bread in his handbag and walked away..

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Nature has its own ways to reveal magnanimity.. Life is not just a cluster of meek, cagey familiarities.. Greatness comes in all form..

I

Have

Learned

So much from God

That I can no longer

Call

Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,

a Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself

With me

That I can no longer call myself

A man, a woman, an angel,

Or even a pure

Soul.

Love has

Befriended Hafiz so completely

It has turned to ash

And freed

Me

Of every concept and image

my mind has ever known.

- Hafiz

Colored Toys

When I bring to you colored toys, my child,
I understand why there is such a play of colors on clouds, on water,
and why flowers are painted in tints
When I sing to make you dance
I truly know why there is music in leaves,
and why waves send their chorus of voices to the heart of the listening earth
When I bring sweet things to your greedy hands
I know why there is honey in the cup of the flowers
and why fruits are secretly filled with sweet juice
When I kiss your face to make you smile, my darling,
I surely understand what pleasure streams from the sky in morning light,
and what delight that is which the summer breeze brings to my body
when I kiss you to make you smile.

- Tagore