A naive not a rebel

The beats still drumming the ears,

The strings still chording in mind

Taking away all the traditional fears,

And all those religious lines

Now it all seems so blurred,

The life is moving in a scurry

And though it never occurred,

The tongue has been slipping in hurry

Now there’s guilt of being a naïve

Cos this life doesn’t live by rules and it ain’t a rebel

Don’t know the right behavior yet not misbehaved

Being nice, trying to be right

Now in competition n fighting a fight

It’s fiery and fire inside

Not burning yet an ignite

But this fire is direction less

Not able to enjoy what it does possess

Want more want more was the cry before

But now that it’s all good, nothing to complain any more

Time is ripe is what they say

But for what is what I ask if I may

Achieving or proving or simply living is my question

When it comes to doing I’m far from perfection

Being perfect is the milestone, though it’s said there isn’t such a thing

Then what’s the run for, if it would last till the blink

It’s not worth the fight if it can’t be taken forth

The fight is to discover s and leave it to live evermore

The peace, the calm the quiet doesn’t do

Still disturbs the lines of ‘them’, ‘me’ and ‘you’

This fire is not to fight, to rebel anymore

It’s just to live and sleep and drown in that shore

The serenity of earth, of the sky and the pure

Where there’s no pain and no need for any cure

Self or System?

It’s 4.30 a.m. in the morning. And something is keeping me up. Yes, I have a question and I couldn’t sleep. The question being, if I’m not caught, am I not a thief? Is it about morals, values, being good or freedom? Is freedom always in contradiction with the arrangement? Are all these, our personal choices or some of these are and should be a mandate and must be followed? And is there a ‘must be’ at all?

I know. Here I throw a volley of questions. But, here the question is about the core, the pedestal. Cos it encompasses it all and also directs the thinking, the supreme function. I question myself at the wee hours of this morning cos I’m facing this contradiction since a pretty long time. And I have had phases which made me draw different conclusions. Till my school days things were either ‘black or white’. There was no shade of grey. No ‘in between’ mark. Later, I saw little more and learnt that there is this ‘neither good nor bad space’ too. Even later, whenever I lost I felt that those who know how to bend the rules are clever. They are not bad. They have an art. Those who couldn’t learn this art choose to embrace the badge of morality and crib about the wrong doers (It comes out of self victimization and I’ve known it). You question your trust the most. And this is how I learnt the most. All the above stages made me question, dispute and infer and thus, helped me draw my own conclusions.

Just few days back I saw little more and added another piece to my puzzle of clarity. Apart from ignorance, love is another barricade between you and the clear. Out of love you tend to bend on your values. Question them much more than you would, if it was for a stranger. I did so too. I doubted my beliefs time and again. If someone has that ‘art’ of getting things done the easier way and benefits oneself then what’s the harm? If a person can convince others to see the loopholes in the system and make them work in his/her favor then what’s the harm? It’s just that others limited themselves. Did not make things turn in their favor, thinking that there is no such possibility. But, those who seek freedom see things differently. They see holes in the walls. They make their way out. Is that a bad thing? And I got the answer as … NO.

The internal bickering stopped for a while.

Then again, I happened to witness a discussion regarding the much talked about, rather the hottest topic of today, ‘Anna Hazare’.  One of our professors talked about how things can be mishandled even when the intent is right. He stated that the problem is not about corruption, it’s about governance. The demands made are not wrong but there must be an adherence to a certain process so that the arrangement remains intact. Cos whenever the process fails, the structure fails and someone loses. And that someone loses the trust on the entire system itself too.

This made me reach the most satisfying conclusions out of all the others in all these years. I got my answer. Freedom is good and must be celebrated but the respect for the system you are in, helps maintain the harmony. One of my other professors once said that “no individual is above the system. You improve the system, individuals will improve too.”  No one is and must be above the system.

But I’m always on a lookout for opinions. Let me know if any. May be there is no conclusion, and it’s all about finding the pieces, rather, the puzzle itself.

A Heart with a hole...

The light is bleak but the hope is intact,
The heart is bruised but the strength still holds its pact.

Life stops at times and makes it forget to breathe,
but the rush of the blood, wakes it up from the sleep.

Now its all alone but it doesn't feel lonely anymore,
the pain is the sediment forever now at this core.

But it doesn't hurt now, cos its become the second nature,
this has become now the only substitute of pleasure.

There's no one to look back to, no one to fall back upon,
and this is the strength which keeps it so strong.

It's a huge plain around with no one to step on,
this carpet would stay clean with no dirt to scorn.

Though 'it' had been caged for an eternity,
'it' was opened once and only out of pity.

'It'opened up to cry, opened to care,
opened to love,opened to despair.
'It' opened to bleed and also to hurt,
the cuts are so deep, that its still open to trust
'It' still lives and breathes
Ready to care and love
Ready to take a dive
Ready to take a stroll.
The heart still beats,
But it's a heart with a hole.

'It' still looks so beautiful, so fine,
no trace of illness,no,no sign.
'It' still looks so red but unlike before,
'It' 'It' still breathes life,but,
now it's a heart with a hole.

More of me…

So here I am, yet again

To share all that I have gained

A many struggles and a series of strife,

Trying to make it in this upside down life

I appreciate His plans but can’t just pretend

That I’m loving this n don’t wish for it to end

Yes there was loads to learn n some of them I did

But there was always a feeling of something being missed

With adventure and knowledge, it’s an uphill road,

Still life runs for me in an entirely different mode

I have got to know things inside and also out,

But none of the achievements could make me that proud

I’m different, I’m more or may be I’m just less to be here,

It’s just that it gets too much on me and gives me a fear

It hazes out the vision making things all unclear

And now I’m glad when the end is so near

These tasks, the challenges, the fight, no it’s not me.

Just wish to be back to myself and be more of me.

Celebrating loneliness…

Have been thinking a lot lately that what is this one thing that we are all really scared of (besides death of course)? If not scared then at least we do not wish upon it. I’m not really the kinds like a people’s person. There are very, very few that I would actually let in. But, I have been trying to find out how is it with the ones, who are socially upfront and open and confident. This was just to see what is that one good or bad or just neutral common element that matters just about same, for any of these breeds (both like and unlike me)?

There has been this phase in my life which binds me in a certain routine which has forced me to think of all this. I work for five days in a week and run on a Friday night bus usually, to meet and stay at my friends’ for the weekend. Wondering that it would be lonely or just idle or, if nothing else it was the love for my childhood friends. May be it was all of it. And then I get this weekend at my place, alone. And though it occurred to me quite a number of times and I have been avoiding it, I just gave in this time. I sat and wondered why I didn’t want to spend any time alone with myself when I have done it plenty of times in my life earlier. And all I could think was that, though we don’t do drugs it doesn’t really mean that we don’t have addictions. There are so many things that we are addicted to. It could be our wonderful gadgets, clothes, parties, or even work. But what I felt was that it was mostly about people. I’m not stating a judgment that like all other addictions this one is bad or good.

Just that it occurred to me that we celebrate all the special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, achievements and everything that remind us of our happiness and the importance of the people around us. With no offence to the relationships that make our lives beautiful, but, there is one thing that we hardly ever thought of celebrating. What we mostly do is sleep, watch a movie, read a book and of course stay hooked to our phone and internet. Yet again, it’s about the world outside. We hardly celebrate the fact that we have got some time with us. Well… may be there is nothing really special about being alone. But that’s the newness about it and that is…. To make it special! To celebrate nothing, but us.

And that’s how I also found an answer to my initial question. That ‘loneliness’ is that one thing that we all wish to outrun so much that at times we start running away from our own selves. And I could feel this way and also write about it cos I just celebrated a day with myself. Not cursing but… celebrating loneliness. 

LIFE OF A CRIPPLED!

Want this day to end, want this time to stop,

Right here, right now wish I could get absorbed.

There’s no movement now n everything stands still,

Even the sands of time have turned into a hill.

In this desert I look for an oasis or just life,

But all I see are these pyramids standing high.

But these pyramids assure me that once there was life,

These huge pieces of stones-no- they won’t lie.

I see myself engraved in these stones somewhere,

A breath I took when even I was unaware.

I must have been put there since I dint move,

Dint budge from my shelf not even to prove,

Prove of my being and of my existence over here,

Cos the shelf was so closed and hidden from the fear.

Fear to step out, to know the world not yet known,

To find how good or bad it may be from what is known.

But guess it’s time to get over with this act of denial,

And now I guess I would be forced to face the trial.

That’s the reason I ask it to stop, to freeze, to end,

Cos it’s out in the open and there is no more pretence.

Wish to get stoned, not on a look out any more,

Or just wish to get that faith back which once got me to this shore.

Cos it’s too hard to walk now since these crutches pain too much.

And also, the life of a crippled isn’t fun as such!

Every painful incident teaches us something.

“Why did this happen to me?”, “What so bad did I do that I have to go through such a mishap?”, “why me always?” These are some questions that we all ask to ourselves, the moment we are hit by an unexpected event that is painful. We fail to make out what could the possible reason behind us becoming the victim without any fault of ours. The answers are way beyond some most commonly words like fate or destiny. These answers are hidden somewhere we cannot easily reach. But, where we can reach is the place where our control lies, where the gravity of our true self lies!

 Every painful incident teaches us something. It brings en face some truth, that we never paid any attention to, until they happened to us. The bigger the loss, the greater is the pain. And then, we must remember that the lesson hidden for us behind it must be big too. Its jus that when it all happens to us, we are over taken by this cyclone of emotions that takes away our ability to think, to rationale to reason and the strength to face the situation. This is all because we tend to give in against these situations and allow our emotions to make us feeble enough. So, we just end up surrendering.

But what I have discovered with my own experiences is that any accident that we face is an unsolved puzzle thrown before us which has a piece missing. The thing that causes the pain is the ‘missing piece. It’s the other end that we have to reach to find the missing piece. To find why is the pain necessary for us? How and when does it end? Or will it ever end?

The pain ends as soon as we find our learning from that incident i.e. if we are able to see the reason why it happened so. Like, why do i look for care from others and why does every time the person who gives that care leaves me? So, the question to be asked here is why do I seek care? Was it something I missed in childhood? Is this the cup that was left half empty when I was not mature enough to realize it. So, what do I do to fill it myself? Seek for people or external stimulants every time to fill some of it for the time being? Or, just create it inside me for others and so much that I feel it too when I give it? Only we can answer it! This is one way how we can look at it all with a bird’s eye! Then we’re able to see how it all happened to us while we were simply drenched in our emotions.

It is only then that we get to know if there were some unseen and un-thought of sides too to the whole incident. Thus, bringing in new perspectives to not only those concerned with the experience, but in fact to almost everything around us. And it’s totally up to us how we embrace this change. Also, the way we apply this new perspective in our lives further. That is because after every such incident we end up making decisions. Decisions as to how we will treat ourselves after the painful experience also, how we would treat our life, our relations and every other following experience. No matter how much we postpone but ultimately we come to terms with the loss and its pain and we move on. Evolved!

 So, it’s entirely up to us that how much do we delay this evolution and keep ourselves jammed in remorse. That is, when do we decide to reach the other end to complete our puzzle?

A life without fear

A life without fear

This was what I had asked for,

Cos there was nothing, that I wanted more

I wanted to find a place, where I was free,

The place where I had the feel like my own territory

Not long ago I was granted my wish,

It was here that my boundaries got unleashed.

It was three years back that I joined a language course in IIT- K. I fell in love with the place ‘at first sight’ and in the ‘first feel’. And I have always believed that it’s the feel that matters.  The place was away from the city and its rush, noise and pollution. It was quiet there and a strange serenity ran all over it. And one could easily feel that behind this calmness was another world. World of those who lived or studied or taught there. For them it could have been different. But for us (my friends and me) it was a whole new space of our own. The place had a calling. It made us want to become a part of it. Cos it had a sense of belongingness.

That was the place which inspired me to do something more than what I had been doing. Made me want to move out and explore. I didn’t know that which path would lead where, but, I just remember ‘asking for’ a similar place where the mind could be as free, to imagine and to explore. And finally, two years later, I found such a place, my college, IWSB.

This was another place located little far and away from civilization. At times it almost felt like being in the outer space. But, that’s what I liked the most about it. It was ‘away’ from all the rush and rush of the daily life. Distant from all the glitz and glitterati. But the best part here too, was the freedom and again the sense of belongingness. Where all of us were equal and no one was looked down upon. And from the very beginning it was made sure that all of us realized its system based on equality. Like one of my faculties, very inspiringly said, that it’s the system that brings about a change. An individual is just an atom of this macro system.

This learning was also ensured for the students by making us go through certain rigorous exercises and activities (outbound). It taught me how it was necessary to work in sync with the team because each one had some weakness and some strength. This made each one a weak as well as a strong link of the whole system. This was one of the very first lessons that I saw and learnt here myself, practically.

The freedom that I discovered here was kind of different. Like it gave me freedom to try, to speak, to express and feel. Inhale each breath of the air of the difference it had from the rest of the world. And, most important, ‘the freedom to make mistakes’. Because I knew that here I could fumble and stumble and no one would laugh. They might scold me and ask me to stand instantly. But, they would never discourage me. Rather the people there would inspire me by all the stories of people, both big and small, who fell and stood and made a difference. There are people who are always there when you reach out to them. Such an environment also made me understand the responsibilities attached to our each mistake, in a much better way. I no more call them consequences.

This is all that makes that place so special. A place where I have the freedom to fall, without any fear.