(87) The Present

Very different day it was. Morning passed away quickly. Afternoon, I gathered some information from my friend. And in evening after having a phone chat with my brother, I went to the park with Charvi. There I met my new neighbour and we both shared our disliking about the city we are in.During conversation, I confessed to her that I feel socially detached in this new place and miss my friends from Hyderabad. I had no idea that soon I would be getting some news from there. Throughout the day, I was feeling very low and it ended leaving me more forlorn.

After serving dinner to Charvi , I called my mom and immediately after I had hung up the phone, I called back my friend in Hyderabad who was constantly trying my number in the meanwhile. She enquired about my health and then after pausing for a while she asked if I got the news about another colleague-family friend of ours. My denial made her inform me about the same. She said that the other friend of ours met with an accident this after noon while returning from tirupati. And before I could ask anything further, a lightning flash of that cheerful lady crossed my mind, my thoughts, my eyes.

Woman with a sweet smile, plain attitude, unique conversing style and ample desire to learn from and mix with every new person being introduced to her. I still remember every meeting of ours, be it the dinner parties at our place, the office gatherings or any event at other friends’s house. She came up with the very same traditional south Indian décor to her persona added with her coy but confident attitude, every time she came across. I always found her involved so honestly either in her husband’s concern or her two little children’s worry, but both layered with proud possession of being the one to take that. She could hardly manage to speak Hindi and I could not speak telugu, so we always conversed in English, I still reckon that peculiar accent she spoke which gave idea about her brief stay in US.

Next line from my friend was ,“ she passed away”. I was shocked. Could’nt believe myself, but yes it was true. It’s only effortless to imagine someone’s death when that person is a stranger, but drastically difficult to accept when that person is known to you. I was not very close to her, but we were friends. I had not spoken to her for long, but the news shook me down, it seemed as if it was only yesterday when all of the friends had gathered at my place for dinner before I left hyerabad. Infact , every occassion of our meeting is replaying itself in my mind so rapidly now, that I fail to believe it all the more that she is not alive. Since last two hours, am unable to think about anything else but her. And what a sad end of life, she was coming back from Tirupati with her Mom,Dad and her son, one and half year old son. They stopped somewhere to buy something for the child. Her father and her son got down to go to some shop and she was seated in the car along with her mother. A lorry came rushing and rammed into the car killing two innocent lives. Why?, what was their fault? Nothing at all. I know, I know this is nothing new, everyday, every single day we read, hear, see an learn about hundreds of accidents and killings, and at times feel sad about them but then we forget and be normal, but how do we manage to do so? Because those are not known to us. At times, even these stranger lives leave me shattered, but I do overcome. Loss of someone known to you is hard to get along with. Imagine, if I am so much disturbed, what those people must be going through for whom she was their life, who loved her more than all, what about her husband, her kids, two young kids?. I am unable to accept this cruelty of nature. I am feeling so helpless. I know things will settle down with time, but right now it is just not settling in me. I am feeling so bad for everyone out there who must be going through the trial of bidding the farewell to this good human being.

Life is so uncertain. Time and again, I learn this, realize this and promise myself every time that from now I will live through the heart, make the best of every day, love everyone and will make the least complaints because I am still blessed to live, but you know what, I forget, I forget it very soon. The fast mechanized material life makes me a robot every time and only such losses reminds me that I have to live more meaningfully rather than successfully.

We had our tickets booked from Udaipur to Delhi for last Monday. Number of times we thought of postponing it to Tuesday, infact everyone insisted us to do so and we had almost decided to do it, but something pulled us back and we sticked to our schedule. We reached home safely. Same train which left on Tuesday met with a massive accident and claimed so many lives plus leaving many injured. News kept flashing throughout the day on television. Whole day, I was thinking what if, what if , what if?. What if we would have changed our program, what if I would have died in that accident, what if something still worse would have taken place?.. I know, this is called pessimism , but tell you, its not so. I have been saved almost four times earlier from similar situations and hence it pushes me to think, what if?..You know, am not scared of dying, not at all. But what petrifies me is the thought of the pain I would leave behind. If not many, am sure of few those loved beings who would certainly not want to acknowledge the news of my demise. And the biggest fear I hold in my death is leaving my child behind. May be I am sounding selfish, but this is what I believe that no one else can give my child the love I hold for her. This may be my illusion because everyone else in family loves her, in fact her dad showers life on her, but still, the selfish mother in me never allows to accept that anyone else can ever look after her better than I do, and so I do not want to die soon. Who is stopping me then?, no one, I know. But , I said, life is so uncertain, and time and again it keeps proving the same, and ticks the reminder—live it , live it, its just today, the day you are in , nothing else you have the hold on, so live it completely just today. No plans, no strategy would work when HE will throw his card. And yes, how can I, so easily forget this, when we have already faced a big inundation of life just 15 days back. Was not that also a token of the fact that nothing is certain except the supreme power and his ways.

So…live it today, live it all, live through heart, speak out your dreams, share your feelings, ask for forgiveness, give your blessings, forget the hatred, kiss your child, hug your mom, speak to your dad, pardon your foe , care for your friend, listen to the loved ones, give time to your people, do everything you could have done yesterday, you can still do yoday,now, but have left it for tomorrow .Yesterday is the past, gone and buried, future is not known, doesn’t exist, what you have in your hand is just today, this day, this moment, the present- may be that’s why we call it a present- a gift. Value it….

(86) Return to origin

Unvoiced, ill-omened heartbeats
Poignant pale eyes
Torrent roared by few drops
Abolishing the within

Barricade so rigid
Broke into pieces
When faced by itself
The mirror fell shattered

Words never came to rescue
Yet again got stuck to tongue
No wonder, thou seen alone
Served rightly with deserved

Regrets! Why? No sense it holds
Nothing can thus be brought back here
Deeds flown with wrong waves
No tides did ever take the U-turn

Illusions still breathing
Fake airs doesn’t long for last
Tempest or zephyr, neither should matter
Last few gulps, suck in fast

Wet identity, sulking in sand
The wind, the water, pulling it in
Speak heart, make mark
The soul is enrooted back to origin

(85) युही

हलकी सुनहरी मासूम सी बूंदें
मचलके, बरसके , बिखर ही गई
किसी ने चाहे हों रुदन मैं बहाई
किसी और की खुशी की वजह बन गई

मोम के पिघलने का सिलसिला जो चला
परवाने की आरजू कुछ और निखर गई
किसी को जगमाती महफिल का मिला आलम
किसी को इश्क मैं मरने की सज़ा तन गई

नज़रों ने उनके हुस्न का कुछ ऐसा बयान दिया
दरमियान मैं जीती जागती मूरत सवर गई
जिस मासूमियत पे वफाओ की कसमें उठाई गयी
वही नामुराद हट के दघा कर गई

महफिल से उठ के जाना, यु अचानक इस तरह
उससे बाबस्ता यह पैगाम दे गया
कभी ना उसकी खुसबू से महकेगा अब यह आलम
जाते जाते आखरी सलाम दे गया

(84) At Times

At times,
You find yourself at the crossroads which leads nowhere, no matter;
You choose to tramp on any of the path.
You are lost and fail to find the very cause of your own subsistence,
Nothing and no one appears of any importance to you

You are puzzled to see those developments of events, which,
You had assumed would never occur in your life.
You are answerless to those questions which arises out of your own conscience,
You do not want to agree to the wrong you might have done, but you surely know what right you could have chosen instead.

The tears keep rolling without the foster of the specific cause which could probably ease them out, but they don’t want any such reason, because they know they just want to gush out of that ready to explode heart and keen to burn themselves- eyes.
The flow aims to be giant, so violent that it could wash you off your feet and land you in the place where no one knows you and nothing really bothers too.

You have everyone around, your family, friends, well-wishers, trying to convince you that it happens, it occurs, its just one part of life, but you, your mind fail to hear or acknowledge a single word. You only know, that you have lost the thing, time is gone, and so the opportunity to get things in better form has also been buried.
Whether you did for yourself, or for others, in good faith or better reason, for one’s good or good for all, whatever it may be, but you know it occurred, it happened.
No ones word, or no ones hug comforts you because you are not comfortable with your self within, you are agitated at your own actions and decisions.

You feel dumped by the almighty for no faults of yours. You give your best, whether happily or not, you don’t do any wrong and still when you are cheated by turns of incidents, you loose the heart to continue. You find yourself in the hurricane of self darted doubts about your own intentions, self-dedications and see yourself at self mercy
for being absconded by the destiny.

You feel lost for eternity, no physical or material thing matters anymore because the fight now grows to the level where you are at one end with god at the other and you want only Him(GOD) to answer all your why’s? Why me, why this, why now, why so, why not that, and still many whys?
You don’t want any other person to try to make you understand why things occurs the way they do, because you feel every logic given in that context is either a fake statement or a misleading judgment which can only console you momentarily but might leave you more weary for ever after and hence you seek a reply from the very source which creates the situations for such questions to arise?
AT times, you want only HIM to settle down the turbulence he has put you into.


You might later feel that everything was perfect and nothing was so disturbing which should put you to dump yourself in the dark confine of sorrows, but for that time, for those moments you fail to agree with each and every argument because you feel so dead inside, no senses so sensible, no emotions justified, no feelings pinches the blood, no logics come to bid, only your soul at work which traumatizes you up and throws you down, knots you in your self contests and jerks you with the stone stiff realities which , indeed , are the only lights which gives foresight in such threatening circumstances and hence you strive to seek for that higher meaning of being what you truly are and not what you have been made into over the years.