The Race is On

A thought of yesterday was respresented in a cartoon of today. 4 lines for a woman raped and murdered in a slum and half a page for a upper class college kid murdered. Jessica finally got
justice it was victory of truth, but as the news room errupted in a frenzy of breaking news I calmly looked at her sister poping the champagne bottle nad wondered if a poor lady in tattered
clothes would have been given that much of screen time.
The crusade of the media finally concluded today as life term was sentenced.
Candle light vigils, protests by enthusiastic kids and hypervenatlating journalists.Hours of reel time are dedicated to talk shows discussing the injustice done by power weilding politicians and corrupt policemen,few seconds of which could have been spared for those hundreds of abductions and rapes that happen in villages and in the underbelly of thriving cities. But then visually it will not be appealing and thus not good television.
Twelve women were sentenced to life because they lynched a serial rapist. The fact that the law
could not save those hundreds of women who lost the will to live because of this man is not important enough.These women payed the price for justice. This is not a story important enough to find space in a news channel.A crusade not intresting enough to be taken up.
The pen is mightier than the sword they say. But today the pen is nothing but a tool for entertainment a element that is reduced to a game of X AND 0 the race is for increased frequency and TAM ratings. Justice and the truth have been left far behind . Manipulated and covered with a pancake meant just for attraction.
Journalism id dead what survives is infotainment.

Mind In Flight

MIND IN FLIGHT
by William B. "Willie Woo" Worcester

CLOUDS OF DOOM AND DARK OF NIGHT,
FRIGHTENED MIND IN HOPELESS FLIGHT;
A LOVELESS KISS A LIE SO FAIR,
AND FRANTIC WINGS STILL BEAT THE AIR.
A TWISTING WIND,
A STORM THAT BLINDS,
THE LIGHTENING FLASH WITH SHARPENING TINES.
A DYING WORD, A SOUNDLESS CRY, D
OES SOMEONE KNOW WHY DREAMS MUST DIE?
ONE WOMAN KNOWS WHY MINDS ARE BLACK
I CRIED FOR LOVE,
SHE TURNED HER BACK.

chalte chalte

aj humne saas li,
aj humne zindagi ko wapis khush hone ki wajah di,
Ladhte ladhte itne kho gaye hum ki jeene ki chahat hi kahin jhoot gayi,
Shayad ane wala kal beete hue kal se batar ho,
shayad gham ke andhere aur bhi bhayanak ho,
lekin us andhere mein shayad ki ek kiran hogi,
apne ap ko dhoonte hue jeet hi jayegi,
kal ki har yaad hum seemat ke rakh de rahe hai,
Sirf woh jo muskurahat mein tabdeel hote hain,
Ek khamoshi hain zehen mein,
Ek aram hai akhon mein,
na gham ke saye hai,
na khushi ke asoon,
reh gyai hai sachai ki jhalak,
aj abhi ki haqeekat,
Na kal ki chinta,
Na aj par narazgi,
Chalte chalte apne ap se thodi si khushi batne ki chahat.

The New year

The new year is coming close and I hope that my effort to bring my life in some kind of
alignment works. Its been a terrible year for me, in one word if I can describe it is pain. Every hope has been shattered and faith has been drowned in the ocean of disappointment. Every
individual I have believed in has taken a 360 degress turn around and left without a trace of
regret or shame. I have seen my dreams being salmmed across the wall of time. I have smiled
as every belief has proved itself to be shallow as the dieing stream. I have refused to compromise, I have refused to let life snatch away my right to dream. A new year , A new chance to bring together a shattered life a broken heart and a sagging strength. Everything has
a reason.
My journey through medical upheavels and heartaches has but taught me one thing that you are master of your destiny. Atleast a part of it. I for once believe in myself. I for once
believe that I am capable of living through a lot and yet have my head on my shoulders. For the
first time in 25 years of my life I am talking about myself . I guess thats proof enough.
Hope should be invested in yourself and but yourself. A humanbeing is too frail a individual to be fight for another person, to inconvenience himself for another or to compromise his ideals for another. The most strongest man fails and at that point of time its you who stands up to the occasion, its you who are your strongest support,its you who inspires you to carry the cross and yet continue living.
Its another year to my life and as I climb this mountain there have been people who came and walked with me and walked way,there have been dreams that have come true and some have faded away but I am still walking on a path etched by god and paved by him
Picture Courtesy : Danr Co http://www.flickr.com/photos/danrco/241183250/

A Song Of Love

When you love someone - youll do anything
Youll do all the crazy things that you cant explain
Youll shoot the moon - put out the sun
When you love someoneYoull deny the truth - believe a lie
Therell be times that youll believe you can really fly
But your lonely nights - have just begunWhen you love someone
When you love someone -
youll feel it deep inside
And nothin else can ever change your mind
When you want someone - when you need someoneWhen you love someone...
When you love someone - youll sacrifice
Youd give it everything you got and you wont think twice
Youd risk it all - no matter what may come
When you love someone
Youll shoot the moon - put out the sun
When you love someone-
Bryan Adams

Love is all this and more, for somebody who lives life without a risk assessment love exists in
every moment of life . In the breeze that caresses you in the early evening , When the sun sets
just for you painting you with its numerous shades of red, love lives in the waves that touch your
feet lovingly playing with your toes with a subtlity of a child.love lives in those consonants that make your name, the sound that lingers in the air echoing through lifetimes.
I had forgotten what love was I had forgotten what life was with love. Love is not dependent on a humanbeing love is a entity itself. In this world of compromise I left it to die in a secluded
corner punishing it for breathing in my life. But then how can I live when I have strangulated breath itself. It has to live.It has thrive, It has to dance it has to smile. Love exists in my life in my dreams, in my faith in my hope.
May be there is no space for red roses in my life but there is space for pink, there may not be a hand to pick me up from the cold sand bank but there is a vision,there may not be the wait for a voice to echo through the cellphone but there is the thought, Nobody is waiting back home to pick me up in his arms but there is a home, There may not be anybody to hold my hand walk on the dark sea but there are the images. For a dreamer the dream is what makes his life worth living.
For a woman who has been in love its not the man that counts its the emotion and the realiztaion that love does not happen once in your life it lives with you for ever waiting for the right mould and the right expression a dream that gets realized into reality by the mighty hand of god. In this circle of life we need to wait for that magic when the whole universe conspires for this perfection.

Cold

Cold gripping you, entering your every bone and muscle,
you cant do anything much but to surrender yourself to its rising wave,
I dont have the strength to fight it, I dont have the energy to question its advance,
Its once agian that I live alone in a room full of people,
once again I seem to have fallen short of everybody's expectations,
The effort is never a part of the trial,
The fire is not warm enough to envelope the cold,
Dragging myself through every responsibility living for a dream that belongs to
somebody else,
I have reached my breaking point.Slowly I disintegrate as the cold breaks every bone in
my body,
slowly I tell life that I have let it down,
I face life as it is a coarse reality,
Its painful but its truth in the truest form,
There was and there will be no true love,
The fact is enough to kill every desire to live , every desire to begin a new day.
The night of yesterday has passed,
I was alone,
The cold refused to go away,
Once again life decided to mock at me,
laugh at my existance,
The loneliness and the hoplesness of my life,
For a few moments images flashed across of a situation a little different a little warmth
of concern,
Then life is not about dreams its about reality.
The sooner I realise the better.

Photo Courtesy : Johny Day
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnydaystudio/322365456/

Ray Of Hope

The desire to achieve exists in each and every living soul. The goal could vary across classes and genre.From poor to the rich, from the intelligent to the challenged,from a mother to a newly wed. Dreams are different but the passion of desire is the same. It is this driving force that makes us human a soft target to sin. Want is a need that makes life a struggle. It pushes man
to swing between the right and wrong. I have realised that this is the only existing thread through which life is weaved. Everytime I pick up the pen words seem to state this very fact.
Sometimes life starves you of the very thing that you think is the most basic.At that point of life
what do you do.Most of the time you disintegrate.The rock near the sea slowly breaks away beaten consistently by the gushing waves. Then we are fragile humanbeings made from soil and gifted the breath of life. Yet somewhere there is the desire to fight, there is hope that tommorrow will bring with it a new beginning a new sunrise. As paul Coelho aptly coins the term
warriors of light. Infact I will say we are warriors for that light. Our life is a ongoing struggle to walk towards it fighting aagainst the darkness that constantly tries to edge its way into our existance. But then comes a time when there is no energy left in you when hope itself deserts you and you are left with no option but to accept your fate.
They say that its a matter of those few seconds between winning and losing. I hate losing and life
has been a fight to win. But through every second of that struggle god has stood by me today he seems to have deserted me , I am sure that this is a lie that I am telling myself . He is there with you when you are the weakest he is your strength. Today when again I stand at the brink of disaster and no longer believe in myself I hope that he is satnding by me holding my ahnd and not letting me fall. Because this time I dont know if I will be able to get up once I fall. Life has taken away a lot from me and everytime I have been thankful for what I have. Its cloudy again and storm is brewing and my legs are very weak. I stand alone waiting to live the storm. Tommorrow is uncertain, today a lonely disaster. They say that when it gets very dark morning is just around the corner. This night refuses to passaway and with the prolonged darkness my ray of hope has jsut died a rather lonely death.
Photo Courtesy : Pandiyan http://www.flickr.com/photos/pandiyan/42012853/

Words

This is From Ghassan a darling friend.

something for you:

“Words, they can lift you up or pull you down...
They can make you smile or make you frown...
Words can give us hope or take it away...
They can change from day to day...
Words can be true or not at all...
They can help us grow or make us fall...
Words can take a heart or rip it apart...
They are so powerful right from the start...
Words can help us understand...
They also can be used to demand...
Words can be gentle, loving and sweet...
They can make us feel we cannot be beat...
Words can burn deep into a soul...
They can also take their toll...
Words should be thought about before they are said...
They can be hurtful when misread...
Words should always mean what they say...
They should make our pain go away...
Words are precious and cherished by few...
They should be chosen wisely by me and you.”

Trying To Smile

Lost in thought

kahin dekh rahe hai ki shayad chahat chupi hai,
chand ke achal se muskurah kar dekh rahi hai,
chamkati chandni jhilmila rahi thi,
hazar tookdon mein toot kar bikhar rahi thi,
parchai ban jati hain boondo mein,
ous ki choti palkon main.
zindagi kuch der ke liye asan lagti hai,
dard ko peeche kahin chod ke chal deti hain,
har sapna sach ke aghosh mein sota hain,
sunehar pal yadon mein kaidh hone ko betab hote hain,
ankhen bandh karne ka man nahin karta,
dar lagta hain kahin andhera gher na le,
hum se hamri chahat jheen na le,
kabhi kabhi ake dastak deti hai khushi,
kabhi kabhi keemat nahin mangti thodi der jeene ki

Life

Looking at life from a dual perspective is very important. It helps you not to be a selfish, self centered individual.Its been difficult for me though. Thus despite all my efforts towards being a
good individual I guess this one big flaw has coloured my several attempts to be the perfect kid.
I like my life to be painted with my colours,one for every emotion. Blue when I am calm, green when i am contemplative, red when I am passionate,golden when I am spiritual, purple when I am angry,black when I am sad and white when I am drifting. Its very unsettling when the picture I paint is less than perfect.
Every individual has a world of thoughts and beliefs from which he keeps on borrowing a shade or two. Most of the time these shades dominate his landscape giving character to the potrait.
A attempt to blend colours which dont come from the deep reserve within ends up in a creation that is not truthful, its a lie that is drapped with brushes of paint and left to dry. But today or tommorrow when the paint starts to peal the truth stands out exposed and vulnerable.
Living your dream versus living in reality. Its a dilema that is a part of each human beings everyday struggle. TO BE OR NOT TO BE. Thats the question. Happiness is not only about our dreams its about living others. The satisfaction that you get when you see the person for whom you have made surreal real is something that cannot be matched by the gladness of your heart when u live only for yourself.
Every Individual knows this, the effort is to try and find the conviction to bring it into functionality. Usually the only motivating factor that works is love. A emotion above all and is all.
I could have claimed to have understood the emotion. But as you cannot fathom the wisdom of god. Love is a puzzle that you cannot solve. It exists yet it doesent ,now you can feel it now it disappears. life is consistent it flows like river on a plain.Without any hurdles,without any obstruction.It meanders silently covering a mile at a time. Sometimes the skies darken and the winds blow hard, then it quivers uncomfortable with the sudden change in its everyday frabic.The storm comes and storm goes, life resumes its usual routine.
There is no place for anything volatile in a common mans life. There has to be a consistent thread that keeps the whole fabric togther. Sometimes you have to compromise on your colours,
a shade darker or a shade lighter will have to do. As long as the weave is even and soothing to the eye, life has to be seen as a larger picture not as a matter of a colour or two.

Khushi

koshish karte hain aj ko tham leni ki,
khushi ko apni muthi main bandh leni ki,
gam ke sayon se daman bachane ki,
dil ko rok late hain dhadakne se,
is khauff se ki kahin uski awaz sun na le,
ehsas hone se pehle dil ki muskhurahat koi chura na le,
itna kho chuke hain hum,ki khushi bhi ras nahin ati,
dard ka ehsas badha ke chali jati hai,
nazar main asson ki adat hai, khushi bewafa hain chidha ke chal deti hain,
gam apna hain sath nibhata hai.

Mohabbat

kuch alag sa ehsas hoti ha mohabat,
Dard ke mukbare par khadi hoti chahat,
Har pal mar kar khudh ko dhoonti huyi jhoonjhoonlahat,
Ek pal main duniya ki har khushi la kar godh bhar deti hain mohabat,
eK hi pal main zindagi ujjad deti hain mohabat,
Maloom hota hai ki jala degi ye shamma,
phir bhi jalne ki jaroorat paida karti hai ye mohabat,

Asoon

Baki ek hi asoon hain,
jo asmayish kar raha hai jeene ki,
dard hai jo majboor kar raha hai ki ek hi palmein khudjkhusi kar le,
apni zindagi uski nam kar de kambakht jo arzoo le gaya jeene ki.

Painting

Breaking away today slowly,
cleaning the webs delicately,
trying to peep into tommorrow shyly,
reflecting into the closeted soul,
trying to find answers,
seraching endlessly,
standing at a crossroard .
A road unknown is pitted against a road known,
A dilema that has been faced by a poet well known,
struggling,fighting,wriggling,yet unable to get free,
A life is full contradictions of ifs and would have beens,
but the final call is of destiny of what has decided and will be,
a path etched for you in the skies,a road that unfolds on this earth,
And all you can do is follow , silently with your dreams firmly held in your heart,
with the strength to live your life painted on a canvass of unceratinity with a brush of the
almighty.

HURT

Dreams have a life of their own, breathing, growing, coloring your vision with shades of the rainbow or smudging your sight with dark opaque shades. Astha looked out of the clear glass trying to trace the droplets of water trickling down unaware of their end. Beautiful they were with their shiny sparkly round bodies; she wished that she could rush like them, desperate to dissolve into the cosmos. Her hands were getting cold; she gets up from the couch and steps towards the kitchen wanting to keep the mug in the sink. Warmth always escapes her even before she begins to get comfortable; before she keeps the mug down she tries to scavenge the last bit. DONT! Don’t think, don’t dream, don’t desire, don’t look forward, and don’t want. She looks out again at the pouring rain and smiles, it was ethereal the picture outside, green touching the skyline, droplets crashing down on the with a vengeance, she took a deep breath to catch the whiff of the sweet fragrance that fills the air when the scorching earth drinks to its satisfaction. Then bit by bit the images start to collate, she tries to turn away, tries to run away but they seem to be pulling her, cajoling her towards their cozy existence, she reprimands herself but their grasp is too strong. They show her a tomorrow that’s so beautiful, so perfect how she can ignore, how she can not walk towards the world her world when it’s perfect, where she is loved and cherished and the queen of somebody’s heart and world. A very bad idea, escapism is like a drink, a temporary solution. The next day you wake up to a splitting headache. But that does not keep you from drinking again. But as they say drinking to express joy is not the same as drinking to hide sorrow. So finally with a lot of effort ground reality is embraced once again. Full stop. She gets up and goes across to the window and throws it open, wind gushes in with a vengeance pregnant with bubbles of water and splashes on her face she has lived the moment. The cold brings her back to life, the breeze brings to her doorstep the beauty of life and she leans across to catch as much as she can of this miracle. There is the faint ringing of a bell and she tries to catch its sound trying to place it into the puzzle of her mind and it grows louder and consistent. Its loud
Enough to drown her thinking, its hurting her now somebody is trying to talk to her. There are words in-between the harshness she can’t decipher what they mean.
She crashes on the ground writhing in pain. Suddenly the noise has stopped. There is peace. She slowly looks up at the whirring fan circling like a mad vulture,
She looks away. Life just refuses to let her live.
The noise had got her once again. It was not going to let go of her. It was here to stay. Everything that should be with her slowly finds its way out of her cosmos.
An empty nest is an open invitation to characters of destruction.
Lot of effort and she finds her two feet. Standing on them is difficult, she stumbles, nobody holds her, there is hurt. A smile adorns her face. Her stride is more confident. She moves towards the almirah, beneath a maroon sari lies her
Faith her dreams her life. He smiles at her his sweet innocent smile. She smiles back at him for the last time. Her fingers tenderly tracing the counters of his face. In a flash his smile had been broken into a million pieces. Hurt was hurt by her.

There was no place for him in her life.

Eve

Eve of tommorrow,
A today slowly dieing in the arms of yesterday,
Living a lie hoping for it to turn into reality,
Waiting,patience slowly ebbing away,
Belief slowly crushing itself under the weight of reality,
Pink no longer is life ,red is not my favourite colour,
colours are changing so are the seasons,
light is turning into darkness,
strength is what you have,faith keeps you going,
the wind is blowing strong,
roots are going to be uprooted,
houses are going to lose their rooftops,
people are going to lose their shelters,
Upheavel will reign,
In the mind, In the soul.
A silver of sunshine peeping through the blackness,
Life a a flow of tides sometimes a high and sometimes a low.

Sea Of Humanity

Mirage

Yesterday I though about love.Yes once agian ! why because thats the only reason why we are here in the first place,why we get up every morning and begin the drill called life. There are a
few people who are lucky enough to wake up to a life where they live the emotion.Others like me have to find solace in hope.That one fine day perhaps morning will bring with it not emptyness but a fullfillment. Few months ago I could say life was complete.There were fireworks in the sky and I desired nothing else but for the feeling of joy to to be nestled in some corner of my heart forever. There was denial also but then who wants to think about the future when your present is so beautiful.What I though was love left me with a acute heartache
a disillusion about the most potent desire. What was it I wonder? for somebody to forget a bond that was supposed be stronger than blood took less than 2 weeks.Blinking of a eye and two years of endless conversations,care,compassion and endless waits was just washed away.The tears were mine and eyelids were his. Then what is love a mirage. The moment you come close it vanishes and marriage is a compromise that waits to happen.

Conscience

I think man unnecessarily gets worried about life.The right things and the wrong. What he says
and does is a part of a pre decided puzzle which is played in the heavens above. Its written in the bible that Man can never be good enough to not need the grace of god.If God chooses you its
because of his greatness and mercy not becasue you have been a ideal human being.
Having sincerely endeavoured to be a decent human being and failed miserably.I have to live with the fact that I am not perfect,(though I would like to believe so :) ) .I have given in to the darkside a lot many times and everytime have cursed my mortal being to it. My penchant for a rum and coke on a saturday night with a malbro light for company and my biggest shortcoming. Expectation from a humanbeing.There is no happiness as in giving. I dont know whether to approve or not. Giving has never been a thought out process its been a no options have to do it kind of a act.Maybe thats what you call a conscience.