succeed

I can’t blame god for my failures because I don’t believe in Him, so I have found other noble substitutes for Him. These substitutes only make my failures more easily explainable. I tell someone ‘luck’ and he wishes me ‘next time’. Failure becomes so faceable with these substitutes. Without these substitutes, I don’t know how I could have explained people about how my age desires for instant gratification and life desires to live upto the expected and that I am my age and my life is the expected of me.

Why do I crave for success, why do i try to find a substitute to make an excuse, why don’t I completely allow myself to play my age, why do I have to play some of the future ‘me’ now in the present? Why is it so much required to try to be the expected and live a failed?

dead leaves

Where do these dead leaves come from? These dead, green-sucked, yellow leaves. Ghosts? I don’t believe in them in public. I can have long debates supporting their non-existence. The moment I walk a dark road, my arguments stop making sense to myself. I believe I could deny ghost’s existence only in public to public, not to myself, lonely.
There is this strange whiff suggesting somebody else’s presence. I often avoid it, or maybe I pretend doing it, maybe nobody can. Sometimes the whiff keeps returning to me making the presence more physical or rather strong. My thoughts avoidingly start chasing the unknown but my eyes are hooked on my legs and their gradually increasing pace. The presence consciously tries to avoid my eyes not my ears. Ears pioneer themselves to hear the breathing of dead stones, dead leaves, trees and the deafening consciousness of the other. I can understand now why dead leaves lie there all morning? to make sense in the night, to make other’s presence mildly louder and to sink my heart deeper.

prerogatives of being someone

I laughed at quite a few women in my life, not always out of intentions. The reason was simple, they were women. Few simple situations enlighten us to eternal ‘elemental realities’ of life. Mine was the simplest. I went to a late night show of a superhero film, when I came back home my younger sister said,” Dad only allows you to go out?” Numerous questions and emotions were bundled together in that single question; it made me think a bit, finally an insightful thought struck me. Prerogatives of being man. Late night movies, parties, fun, more freedom in general. This is what made me show a sarcastic pity on women until a recent incident, when I took a leave for a break from the work, which turned my insights, inside out.

Our maid was washing clothes; she was startled breathless when she see saw a snake creeping under some wood lying near her. She ran inside screaming which made others run screaming outside. “Where is it?” my mother who was a step closer to the wood than me asked. The maid after regaining some consciousness and fair amount of confidence came out and pointed towards the woods. My mother, frightened, so fast swapped her space with mine that it made me immediately tremble my legs uncontrollably. Sometimes our body parts have minds of their own, like in this situation my legs had a mind of their own, I splutteringly ordered them to stay still but they preferred to tremble. I gave up.
” Take this stick, shake the snake out of the wood”, my mother pushed me handing me an old hockey stick. My hands mind was reluctant, but my mind forced it take and shake the wood.
I saw the biggest snake ever, the snake swiftly tried to make an escape, its body and movement cued all my body minds to wake up suddenly as in a shock. My eye’s mind was frightened to beyond limits, hearts mind was cold with shock, hands mind was chocked, throats and nose mind was suffocating. Ears mind was the only thing which was periodically beating like heart.
But some mind in me I don’t know which one, started hitting the snakes head with the stick, with such precision and force that few could have easily mistaken me for an artist with an art to kill snakes. I was exasperated, and seeing the dead snake and its blood even made me feel dizzy.
I threw away the stick having won the battle with the beast. My ears opened doors to more voices which were more than just hissing sounds and eye’s vision stretched till my house’s fence’s horizon.
All the women from my colony were standing around the fence along with my mother and sister, men were out for office. I was about to enter my home when I heard voices which said,” It was so small, maybe of the size double the lizard.” Few voices even giggled and few women even laughed at me, more on my life, few I could hear smiled with a sarcastic appreciation.
Next day I heard two army men talking to each other while in a bus to office,” sir, my wife says she is lucky to be at home and enjoy our kid grow each bit, she is lucky for she doesn’t have to go on war”, to which the other replied,” prerogative of being a women sir, mid-afternoon karan johar coffee shows, kitty parties, gossip, fun, more safer life in general”.
“Excuse me”, a lady pointed me to somewhere above the window saying,” It’s a ladies seat”.

I wouldn't have minded being born a women either

american recession and indian me

“Hope and change have come through America”, President-elect Mr. Obama was giving this historic speech when I was called by my boss from the lounge, where I had been watching it. Project was submitted on time last week and the current project is speeding under me, so I hoped for good news, at least not a bad one.
“After USA was recently hit badly by recession, my friend “, my boss continued,” many businesses have gone scrap”, I was wondering at why he chose me to unload his economic awareness upon, but I couldn’t wonder for longer because he crisply ended saying,” The project you were working is scraped and so are you”.
Was I supposed to ask the reason or was I supposed to say thank you for your best wishes or was I supposed to fall down like someone who had a heart attack or was I supposed to go back to watch television, so that my boss would call me again to say something different, like,” Didn’t you hear what Obama just said!!!!!!! Change has come through America to you”.
No matter how many times I brought myself to my boss’s office to hear something different, he would have meant the same.
The reality was I was fired because my timely submission of the project didn’t stop America from ‘recession’.

Having been kicked my butt out; I was walking out of the office when I heard a screeching voice,” Baba Allah ke naam pe dede”. Was someone asking me for a job? I turned back to see a shabby beggar, more shabby than the usual ones, I thought, is he too hit by recession?
He was gaping at me with a look of ‘hope and change’, emphasizing more on ‘change’ thing. I scrabbled for change in my pocket and handed him a 50 paisa coin, he gaped at the coin for a long time and looked up again at me as if he wanted to say,’ recession period saar” and before this recession could swallow me up, I was gone.

god planned

“She has done an MBA, now working in a big MNC, what more do you want? Next Sunday we are going to see her for you and you are coming along”. Had he just added another sentence “she is beautiful”, my wait of a week would have gone peacefully, remembering the romantic memories of future. The week in my office and elsewhere went so monotonously creepy with just one question, which kept reverberating each time I saw a new girl,” Is she like this?”.
Few faces which always went unnoticed started staring at me as though reminding me of my bad deeds and saying,” She is one like us, hehe”. Oh! That was so frightening.
“Are you ready, we are late”? Can’t he see? I did not want to go.
I stepped out of the back seat of the car where I was squashed in between my parents and their obstinate proposal.
The girl’s house had old and repairable walls and roof. Television was the latest, furniture was new. The girl’s father had lavishly spent his daughter’s money, as though his last wish had come true.
Elders were talking and laughing about every insignificant likes and incidents of their lives, which they in any other situation would not have found them equally amusing.
I was totally uninvolved in their talks, so I kept a permanent smile for obvious reasons.
There was already a tiny time bomb planted in my heart a week ago and only now it was clocking faster, ready to blast any moment.
The curtain on the kitchen door flicked to a side more than usual and out came the mystery which I never wanted to unveil and at the same time was unable to wait for it to get unveiled.
The permanent smile I wore was lost; blood was getting pumped even to those parts which are meant to be dead, like my hair and nails. Her every step towards me was making me react to things slower and slower. The sudden rush of blood to my mouth stopped, my mouth remained gapping and dead.
“She is Urvashi, my daughter”. Did I just hear,” she is Urvashi, from heaven”.
“Chai”. I just heard the most beautiful voice and saw the most lovable eyes of my life. My jaws regained their position, only my jaws for that matter.
The bomb in my heart went off, popping out a single word ‘Urvashi’, just like boxes which pop open with a boxing punch or a paper snake.
My eyes followed her everywhere forgetting to act shy.

I thanked god for having such beautiful plans for me.

missed days

I was happy, excited, and impatient because my train would reach my home in another 3 hours. It has been seven years working far away from home. So far, that I could make my mother cry by just saying a ‘hello’ over the phone. I couldn’t make my father cry because he had promised that he wouldn’t. He couldn’t cry even when I had said him that it would take me another 3 years to be back.
My impatience was engulfing me. For the first time I was hearing the clicking of every second of my watch so clearly, it feels so bad, so long. I couldn’t think of how my father had felt 3 years back.
I reached the station finishing the longest journey of my life.
My father was waiting there for me. I saw his eyes behind his glasses; his glasses didn’t change but his eyes did, they were dustier. His eyes had the same fake strength as his voice had over the phone. Bending down, I reached for his feet to touch them but he held me by my arms and hugged me. He forced a smile on his face; I forced a tear back into my eyes.
We took a rickshaw back to home. My father unlike before didn’t have an argument over the fare the rickshaw wala asked.
My father said that I have grown young and healthy; I couldn’t say to him that he was looking fragile and old because it made me sad to see him the way he was looking. He was not looking dependable like he did when he came with me to see me off to the station where I had to catch the train to the place which never became my home. He had said then with a grin,” 4 years will run away like this”.
We reached home.
I got down from the rickshaw. My father pulled the luggage out, I bore the pain.
My mother, who sat in the doors, saw me and the first thing in her body to react were her tears and then followed her legs. She ran to me though not faster than her tears and hugged me. The air was filled mixed with sadness, happiness, and numbness.

We went inside. I saw nothing much changed, except the air. The air which bore pristine youngness 7 years back now was grappling on more agedness than it could hold. The rocking chair of my grandfather seemed waiting desperately for my father.
My mother made all the dishes, which she knew I liked, standing for a long time on a constantly paining leg. My father was attending to everything which was about to come on my mind, forgetting to even gulp a sip of water after taking his pills.

They were so happy to see me, but I was in pain to see them.

Mr. Anand is unhappy

A vulture took a deep dive in the air, straight in the verandah of one Mr. Anand’s house.It perched on one of the pots with very little water in it. It reached out for the water, but the water was too low. The vulture saw Mr. Anand coming out, he looked agile and in a poignant mood. “Can I get some water”, said the vulture expecting a ‘no’ from Mr. Anand,” I had so much to eat but didn’t find water anywhere, since most of the wells and tanks of water are used up by the fire brigades in extinguishing the blazing buildings in and around the city”.“There”, pointing towards the pot on which the vulture was sitting he said,” Put some stones in it so that the water level rises”.“I don’t have time, I have to take some meat for my children, there are so many freshly dead, men lying around”, said the vulture and took off from there,” please put some stones in the pot while I come back in some time after feeding my children”.Mr.Anand who was deeply merged in thoughts picked up the stones . His thoughts were rocking between one street and the other, between one dead body and the other, between one blazing building and the other.There is no end to it. This will continue as long as our politicians’ attitudes remain lackadaisical, these vultures will keep getting fresh dead bodies as long as our attitudes remain lackadaisical. We will have no option but to put stones in the pots so that at least these vultures live on. The enemy will keep assaulting our security. No, we have to stop it. We have to stop voting to those hackneyed, lazy bastards, who have time, just for empty rhetoric. Mr.Anand was engrossed in these thoughts of reforming the so called action takers when he saw the vulture approaching back to him.The vulture perched on the pot, saw that the water had risen in level. It drank a lot of it.“I am so thankful to you. You seem to be few of those rarest human beings with a gift to be selfless even in your worst times”, continued the vulture,” You have helped me even though you knew that, seeing your dead body would have made me more happy”.Mr. Anand was indifferent to what the vulture had said about him.“You seem to be very distressed at what is happening. Can I be of some help to you?” asked the vulture genuinely in a low tone, even though it would have been happier to talk to a dead Mr.Anand.Annoyed, Mr.Anand said,” Can you solve this problem?”The vulture understood what Mr.Anand meant by ‘problem’.“I have the solution, a long term one, but human minds can’t understand it, they would find it very impractical and absurd, eventhough men claim to have understood far more absurd things, this one is just too absurd for lifetime sighted humans”.“Tell me”, hopelessly asked Mr.anand.“Practice what you preach”, emphasizingly the vulture uttered again,” Practice what you preach”.Mr.Anand couldn’t remotely relate these words to cruelties happening around.“Please explain?” Mr.Anand requested desperately.“You men never practice what you preach. You tell that the religious atrocities taking place are preventable if all of us(mainly pointing to the people who are bombing) could understand that there is only one god, but when your daughters ask you to marry her off to a person from some other religion or community, you become the same extremists, you repace them for the same actions.When it comes to vote, you vote for the people of your place, community, caste and religion seeing a short term security of your community alone, forgetting about others.These leaders are hackneyed, since they take their voters for granted. They know your revolution can outgrow an election or two, but it can never outgrow the class, religion, caste boundaries that you have created around yourselves.You preach your children to be soldiers when you see these attacks and the very next day you ask them to be an IAS, or an engineer instead.You never bargain in a big showroom, but you never forget to bargain with a rickshaw wala, you never forget to mention a poor roadside vendor of his costly ice-cream and still you preach to love the poor. You preach everyone to be alert, but you never care to look around your seats when you travel in a local bus, thinking that it would look embarrassing if you are the only person doing it. You need a company even to be alert.You never forget to preach him to never compare himself to anybody else but you keep comparing your kid to a distant relative living in USA or an IAS officer. You ask your children to be strong, but you never forget to reprimand their friends every time your child has a brawl with them.You preach the militants to show restrain, whereas you kill your brothers from other states for they came to your place for better opportunities.The list of your inconsistencies of ethics can go on. But as I said, it would be difficult for you people to comprehend its real meaning.You won’t understand the fact that you as an individual is completely responsible for what is going on. You preach but you are mean.And as long as you men are mean, I will have to keep coming to you for water”, saying these words the vulture flew away.Mr.Anand turned back and as he was walking to the door, the volume of the news on the television ceaselessly increased.“62 hours of brave battle by our soldiers in the Taj is over. All the militants have been killed and one has been held alive.People have come on the streets. They are asking the government about who is responsible for the attack.
The people are angry”For Mr.Anand, the question, 'who is responsible' was the answer.

oasis

On the tip-off from an old tribe in the great deserts, about the oldest desert civilization, two archaeologists decided to explore the deepest depths of the great desert- Sahara.
After collecting all the information and ration they left for the jungle of sand.
The first archaeologist was a very intelligent, highly analytical and highly skilled. The second one was relatively a naïve, but enthusiastic, a subordinate of the intelligent one.

11 days passed, there was no sign of anything, and the air in the hot sun became so thin that it was difficult to breath.
“God save us, show us the way, the correct away” the intelligent archeologist fumed, taking out his compass and binoculars.
“Sir why don’t we just keep moving, maybe the tribes were wrong about the said location, maybe it required more days”.
“No, they said, 8 days of journey will reach us to the spot”.
“And it’s the 12th day sir”.

They both decided to rest. “We will decide about what we are going to do next, tomorrow morning” said the boss.
“We are not left with enough water, we have to search for an oasis now” said the senior the next morning.
The subordinate agreed without a voice, forgetting that he actually came to find something else.
The sun on the 13th day afternoon was very near to the earth. It was the biggest sun both the archaeologists had ever seen.
After moving for some distance, the subordinate yelled “sir there you see”.
“Where?” came the reply.
“There the oasis, you see”.
Seeing through the binoculars the senior said,” have you ever heard of mirages?”
There was no reply.
“I think we have to analyze the wind’s direction, according to my knowledge…blah blah blah blah…………….. This is the direction to the oasis”, the superior said.
They traveled in the decided direction for just some time when the junior yelled again,” Oasis ahead”.
“Mirage, its just mirage”
“Sir, I will go ahead to see myself if it’s really a mirage?”
“Alright! But you will have to take only little water with you, I will be waiting for you here, but let me warn you that you are just wasting your energy”.

The junior left in a direction straight ahead.

“God it is almost night, the junior has not returned till now.”
“I will have to search for oasis soon myself”, thought the senior.

Next day, and the days next, for five days, the senior moved in all the directions, analyzing, deducing and at last returning to the same place from where he had left.
Water was over. The sweat was dried up, to form salt.
The sun sucked every onus of energy from him. When he smelled in the air that death was now irrevocable, he remembered his junior and whispered in air,” I am coming to you”.
Those were his last words as a man living earth.

The senior’s soul was taken to god. God had good things for him. God sent him to heaven.
The senior was looking for his subordinate. At last he thought to himself, “maybe in a day or two he will be here”.
..
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..
Days passed
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.Years passed.
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50 years later. A soul, old, and looking satisfied with life on earth was roaming when someone called upon him.
“Hey, you! Where were you, I have been searching for you from the past 50 years”.
“Even I searched for you sir, all over the desert, with the men I found on the oasis”.
“I died after just 5 days, after you left. I never thought you would find the oasis”.
“I never thought that you will not find one” reciprocated junior.
“Please tell me, how did you find the oasis?” the senior curiously asked.
“Sir, when I left from you, I was actually following a mirage, wherever I stopped, it stopped too, and whenever I moved, it moved too, in the same direction as mine”.
“Everytime it moved away from me, everytime it despised me, everytime it vanished, I kept moving, I kept chasing it”.
“And then suddenly one day, I was the only thing moving, the oasis stood there fixed.”

“And I kept moving around in circles never moving out of the analyzing and deducing loop”. Said the senior.

“Can you see down sir, to the place where I left you?”
Both looked down to the earth, to the place where they left each other in the desert.

It was surrounded by oases. Oases all around.

“Had I moved in any single direction. Had I believed in something as silly as a mirage and just moved”.
"You should run after a mirage to find an oasis"

first love

“Man! I am in love. You may wonder but this is my first love. Never felt the way I am feeling right now. She is so beautiful, so soft. I have decided to propose her. Filmy style!!! I am going to take her to city mall and there in the open in front of a thousand people, I will propose to her”. “What do you say man? Will that work”?

“I don’t know”.

“Come-on now”, “tell me what I should do?” “Is it a good idea”?
“I don’t know man” If you are feeling that’s the way you can do it! you go ahead”

“Alright what did you do to propose to you first love”?” Ok tell me how it felt like to be in love”.
“Umm ok first you tell me how you felt like when you were born”.

“I felt like wow!” Wait. “What...Man how I can tell you how I felt? I mean I was just born. I was unconscious or subconscious or in some kind of state which I can’t explain. On my 6th birthday only, I came to know that I was actually born 6 years back”.
“So you never knew what the world was thinking about you when you were born”.
“Absolutely right”!” Hahahaha I don’t even know how many times I might have caused embarrassment to my parents, I mean”
“You mean that you never cared where you shitted, where you pissed. You don’t know how many people might have said “piss off” you dirty kid, though in their hearts. You really don’t remember anything.
“You are right!!! I don’t remember anything when I was born and you are telling me that you too don’t remember the things of in the same way”.

“Yes, I don’t remember those days of sub-unconsciousness” “Those two years of first love and a lot of shitting in public ”.
“Umm…hey but where are you going?” “Hey wait!! What do you mean, will I look like as if I am shitting in front of those thousand people in mall when I propose. Hey waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

catnext

The announcement came from the speakers in corners of the room hanging like spider web “one and half hours over”. The sound of my heartbeat, the announcement, both synchronized so good that it felt like a background score to a movie ending on a sad note.
I glanced to my both sides; people who looked alive and sober at the beginning were occasionally, like robots moving their hands; I could see a sea of heads, some in aimless direction but ‘still’ as if cursed by god to remain like that forever.
Everything was moving slowly but the time. I was sporadically going into a state of tranquility which broke every time the sense of time prevailed. The time was eluding so fast that it made me remember one cliché which said “when you desire for something from the bottom of your heart the whole world conspires to help it become elusive”. It was another fifteen minutes before I could be back to what I was meant to do. Fifteen minutes! My soul cried, but immediately making a quick resolution to not to get lost again and do the job at hands, I just thought of attacking my weakest area now.
Little did I know about what was waiting for me? As soon as I entered this section my worst fear came into life. Now, I knew that my fear was poised there for a long time, waiting for me like a lizard waiting patiently for a fly to sit near it before it could feast on it. I could hardly understand the moves it was making, but I knew that it was making its moves. I triumphed over few questions and few of them triumphed over me. The announcement came again, but this time to just say “time over”. I sighed but I didn’t know for what.
The hall which until now was abode of mystic silence suddenly sprang into chaos of larger silence. I stood up and followed the herd to the door. I looked back at the place where I sat a few moments ago. To my surprise I saw someone still fighting, not ready to give up. It raised its face knowing that I was peeking at it. My eyes started widening to see that it was nobody else but my soul. It took me a moment to get back into my mind. I smiled at it and told it with a bold authority “friend its time to move on”.

The room I wrote the exam in was on the third floor of this college building. College building! I got lost into thoughts again though this time after a bigger break. “Where the hell do IIMs find these colleges from? The real aptitude test starts from not the time when the bell cues you into writing the test, but from the time when you get ready in the morning of the D-day and leave to find these test centres. Many buckle under the pressure of finding the test centre itself. And few are smart enough (in their own eyes) to reach their centre half a day before and give a supremely confident grin stretching from ear to ear to a locked and barren gate of the centre”. Someone suddenly brushed their body against mine, making me leap off almost 4 steps of the stairs. I woke up and realized that I have almost descended to the first floor. People whose bodies were possessed by ghosts of some or the other kinds untill now; were exorcized from the unsullied outside air. People started recognizing one another again, smiling at one another as if they rediscovered an ancient art of alchemy.