Fall off...

The days would flow on and on, unnoticed. I would wither slurping the drink of the dead that lulls my body to grow beyond the senses. My eyes, out of sleeplessness, get accustomed to having an unrealistic look and outlook. Day by day they would grow heavily red, giving out an evidence of having no solace and peace in the heart. In the noise of thoughts, imaginations, plans, dreams and conclusions, the weight of a decision lurks on the shoulders, but never settles down, never pushing me ahead. In a swing of experiences, hallucinations go unfiltered and reality remains undistinguished. There I find myself running out of all these, trying to find an expression at its best, trying to get a purpose at its cleanest to walk for. Waiting to be caught by an idea. Struck hysterically by a love for the ideal. Trying to have a hold on the draining perseverance. Trying to find an art to vent my anguish out, only to realize that I lost the sensitivity that any form of art needs, for its manifestation. Here I withdraw….! I withdraw from celebrating this bitter chocolate.

shades of love

Not a drop of tear would roll,
Down through the lane of memories,
Nor a rose, nor a thorn;
Nothingness remains…all for my ease.

Another grey morning; As the thoughts cloud over my heart as they ever do, I sit on my bed beside the window, watching through it, the flowers of the laburnum in my garden falling down, onto the waters pooled by the last night’s rain in the cool winds giving a breath of fresh air with a whiff of wet soil. I take my time, leisurely over a cup of coffee. My cup of black coffee with a dash of milk over it. The aroma takes me into the warmer corners of my heart through the seemingly hazy clutter of thoughts that surround it.
I see that everything is simply drenched in rain; the wetness gives to things around, a new shade. At times, adding new colors to them. The leaves shine with shades of silvery green, with each one passing over the left over pearls of rain to the one below it, finally losing them to the brick red waters on the wet dark red soil of my garden. The yellow laburnum petals seem no way in a sorrow for falling off their branches in the wind. They gaily sail through the water pools towards the awaiting harbors. I deeply fall in love with the shades of earth at this moment.
Sip by sip, my thoughts grow moist, and I hang over those warm corners of my heart. The warm corners of my heart sweetened with love that I brewed through times. Love, my love for the life around and within me. My love for the colors, tastes, tune and rhythm in my life. Looking at my love for the new shades that my garden acquired in the rain, I realize that every emotion in my heart, good or bad is either love in disguise or a feeling drenched with love, seen in a new shade just like that of the things in rain. This infuses me with thoughts over how things work on love for something. Holding my cup of coffee tight, I examine the ethereal vapors coming out of it. They look as if they were dancing with themselves deriving and giving to some unseen spectator a transient pleasure and finally disappearing into nothingness after their performance. It is then that rain droplets in the stiff breeze shower on my face through the window, leaving behind a strong sense of déjà vu.
Earth is inspiringly full of so many beautiful things that even “love” that I brew, loves to be earthly. “Love” would be pleased to have a bunch of roses on its table as long as they are in a bloom! If not forever. The tempting wetness of the earthly soil attracts love to come away from the roof of eternity and the unconditional, just to play with it for a while. The word “short-lived” loses its meaning as long as it is all about the joy in the play, like the falling laburnum petals and drops of rain. All that I see, I feel and I here, seem to be drenched wet if love were rain. May it be for a short while, I like it wet. Call it my pain that is otherwise my love in the form of an expectation, call it the pun that I crack at times which otherwise love taken for granted or call my crush which is otherwise love short-lived in the form of a human attraction. This way, I simply feel soaked in rain, come what may!
As the aura of the weather deeply sinks into my heart along with the aroma of coffee, I can feel my thoughts trickling down into those warm corners of heart, adding more shades to love that I contain. Giving reasons for the happenings good or bad, leaving space for no drop of tear, filling in solace, leaving behind nothingness……the mystic shades of love.

when going gets tough

Are you in a state when everything seems to be falling apart in your life? You do not like anybody in your class or is it the other way round? You look at the mirror and realize that your nose is too chubby. And you are getting pimples of all sizes on your face. In short, unpleasant things happening and you just can’t cope.
Well, meet someone who is literally, physically falling apart and still coping… wonderfully surviving against the toughest odds. Meet B.P. crow, who lives in a lush green Badam tree opposite my house. B.P. is not blood pressure , but bits and pieces. Here is a crow that seems to be made of bits and pieces and assembled all wrong. Some of these bits and pieces keep falling off. Yet B.P. crow survives and seems happy about it.
To begin with ,B.P. crow lost all the toes and claws of one leg, when perched on an electric transformer an year ago. Next, he lost the stump of a leg in a violent fight with a raven twice his size. Now he stands on his belly. His head doesn’t have the neat back combed look all crows have. The few feathers he has, stick out in all directions as if someone had crudely stuck them on him.
And there was the day he fought a dog over some crumbs. B.P. crow was the winner though his eye took a swipe from the dog’s sharp claws during the fight. That was also when his voice changed. so, when he caws, it sounds like he is being strangled, startling other birds who stare at him in horror. But his spirit was not dampened by all these things.
And then, last week, B.P. crow vanished. I took round in the surroundings to see if he was lying down wounded somewhere. But, no traces of him and I assumed he must have died somewhere! Afterall, it is amazing that he had survived this long with all his disabilities, with no one to protect him.
And then this morning he suddenly reappeared. And he no longer looked like a crow. I had thought it was impossible for B.P. crow to become more battered than he already was, but he had managed to become worse! Now his tough vulture beak had broken half way up and now he had a longer lower beak and a half-upper beak. As I threw a piece of milk soaked bread at him, he ate it digging his lower beak into the food and tilting his beak head backwards to let it all go in. all the feathers in his back were gone. And one wing was clearly broken. His single eye shone like a star.
So inspired was I by B.P. crow’s surviving skills that I went back to the mirror to replace my grumpy sad face with a smiling one, I then looked at B.P. crow again out of window, and this time my smile became laugh of admiration. Do you know why?
Because in that broken beak, B.P. crow was now holding a twig tightly. He was building a nest! Yes, when ‘the going gets tough, the tough gets going’!
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A TUNE...

Coming from my “still-wet-past”
Seeping deep into the warmly dark,
Sleeping corners of my heart,
Dancing gaily to my silence’s rhythm,
It is a tune that is felt…!
Drenching eyes with tears of joy,
Leaving behind marks too hard,
To be washed away by the time,
Cherishing memories ambiguous,
It is a tune that is felt…!
A tune that wakes a kid up,
Out of the dry years I am entangled with.
It passes through me, I float through it,
It is a tune that is felt….!
as the white fluffy clouds do,
in the invisible winds,
across the directionless sky.
I fly with it….Don’t know how and why.
It Is a tune that is felt…!
Meanings matter the least,
too dormant to be possessed by words.
Comfort in this tune,
Came with the privilege of your friendship.
It is a tune that is felt..!
Undefined words and formless love,
Help me express what you mean..
There you stand high,
Above the undefined,
Above the formless,
it is a tune that is felt..!
this is what your friendship means to me..

it talks as it flows..

“One need not be a student of science to state that energy is conserved” I say. Now, do you have anything to say in this context? Come up with a counter argument or bring in a huge variety of responses to my question. But, here I “write” and I am more bothered about your response/reaction, whether my energy conversed with that of yours or not. If you have anything to say in this context too, i am sure, both of our energies at this particular instant of time (or for a few more minutes if my writing is good enough!!) are in a very good interactive session!
Come, let’s “speak”. I wonder at times, what role do these symbols and gestures play in conveying something to someone? There is something “else” that enables these letters to reach the reader in the right sense. Something along with those word meanings, beyond the flat that we get to see. Now, what are you doing? Are you pondering over what this article can further be about? Or did you get a clue of energies of you and me conversing? Whatever it is, these letters of mine placed here, following some predetermined rules of writing, hold a lot of energy with them and they bear with it as long as they are here. For me, the energy that I used to write these words would hover over every letter that you “see”.
I wanted to put this better, hence I thought of studying this concept of energies conversing further and hence add something more appealing to this one, the first day. Now, isn't it amazing if my physics professor, taking up his new topic, states that “energy follows thought” the very second day in the class room. I don’t know what made him say that without knowing that I am working on it. Now, here my energy follows my thoughts and lies down here on this screen in the form of letters. Not only a game of symbols here, I never knew that my energy would converse with that of my physics teacher so soon and give me a fascinating insight into this topic through him. I am sure you too have certain examples of your energies conversing with someone like that of mine over here in your mind.
Many of my friends observe this happening, energies conversing. They neither asked me to write something on this, nor did they discuss the topic much. But the impact of this phenomenon on the thinking of people around me is so much so that, their thought energies influenced me to write this. Hence, I say, “one need not be a student of science to state that energies converse”. What say???

Kabita

"Ma is in the construction of the third floor" says kabita rather proudly, pointing towards the hostel in construction beside the hostel number 9."I just washed the utensils and it’s time for Ma to come and start making rotis". She quickly wears her plaits and rushes into her dingy dwelling made out of plastic sheeting. she comes out after a creak of an old iron trunk from inside, with her book and pencil given to her by "nirvana" in hands. She nods "chalo" .I pick up, children to nirvana form this area, the area where the construction labourers temporarily stay until the permanent buildings of the "citizens of tomorrow" are made.
Dark brown hair and a calm face wearing no expression, with a typical Indian features, as if an Indian poet of beauty has carefully defined them. A thin air of cement dust making its way through the curls of hair, twinkling eyes that are eager to hear something new, something never heard before, like "A B C D...",this is kabita. Wearing a faded brown kurta pressed fit to her body, probably through the course of time. With orange flowers printed on it, those are always in bloom. She hops throughout our way, barefoot, like a rabbit, plucking some tall grass that touches her hands, humming tunes never heard by me....
"We waited a lot for you yesterday, why didn’t you come?" she questions. I start explaining "you should be knowing that yesterday was rakshabandhan ,a holiday, a festival for....",my explanation, not allowed to be completed is followed by a counter argument from her side "so what? We can’t afford to miss a class you know! yesterday we were waiting for you..for a long time". I have no answer to this. "We have nothing much to do on festivals you know, you should come to take us daily to the school" she says after sometime, breaking the silence.
We reach the college-canteen junction where a fountain is recently inaugurated. The fountain just starts, the colour of the lights focused on the water change, kabita stops there and stares at it,"kitna mast hai.!!(How nice!!!)...where does this water come from??From the ground? it doesnt give an electric shock if i touch the water ryt?"She asks curiously. she goes nearer to the fountain, without waiting for my reply and coming back in a short while. On the way to the seminar hall, where, nirvana is held, she says, in a low voice," The fountain is nice, but the surroundings at the place aren’t suitable to have a fountain over there, with no shrubbery or flower pots around, it looks incomplete" ."Dont worry, things would come to a balance and completion one day" I say within myself. We reach our destination where kabita is taught addition that day.
The next day. My physics lecture extends upto 5:50pm, intrcacies of the concept of twin paradox, do not get into my brain, I can see kabita calling me, I can hear her waiting for me to pick them to "Nirvana".
Again on the same roads I walk towards kabita's house, thinking of her,as eager as the grass that is waiting to be touched by her on the way.Half the way I find her running towards me,shouting aloud..."saar...look at this.!!" showing her new note book and a blue ball pen."now,I will write in this book,..a new book..papa brought it for me.." full of curiosity she says.."teach something totally new to me, today. things that come after A,B,C,D...I want to write all those things in this new book".Her eyes wide open,twinkling, trying to listen to all that my eyes have to say...

Nirvana is, a voluntary organisation, run by the students of S.V.N.I.T, with an aim to impart basic education to the underprivileged children.

My butterfly...

Does a butterfly know that it means a lot to a scientist? Is there anything more to its wings apart from those alluring colors? Well, it’s time we give the butterfly a higher stature!!
"The wing movements of a butterfly might have significant repercussions on wind strength and movements throughout the weather systems of the world, and theoretically, could cause tornadoes halfway around the world."
Thanks to Edward Lorenz, a mathematician and a meteorologist, for his work in establishing “the butter fly effect” on the background of “chaos theory”. What has this effect got to do with us? The very word “effect” as the dictionary says, means, “ a change, reaction or a result that is caused by something". A very tiny variation (as is the motion of the wings of a butterfly), can bring about a significant change in the giant and complex systems. Being more scientific, small variation of the initial conditions of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behaviour of the system. Talking in our terms, a very small change that one comes across may render ones behaviour unpredictable. Small, yet significant happenings bring about a change, this change is easily brought about as the energies converse as we say.This in turn sounds as if it is crying aloud "everything is related to the other", now let this not drag us into ecology, influenced by our very own theory!
A firm faith in the significant effects that a small change can bring about, is a thinker's thought, a socialiser’s hope, a realtor’s tact, a director’s point and a leader’s goal. Science works miracles everywhere.
May the fragrance of science and humanities being cultivated in the wet soils hang in the air, as the small things continue to make wonders.