The book called life....

Known as the page of happiness,
I am a part of the book called life,
I bring smiles to convex lips,
To a child, to a man, to a wife!

However much ironical it may seem,
A crying neonate brings bliss to parents,
All this has been indited on me,
The niceties of joy and joy of currents!

Here I turn, the page of sorrow,
The book called life contains me as well,
Thought of more than my positive counterpart,
I can take you to the doorstep of hell!

Equally ironic is the fact,
Someone's joy is someone's cry,
Gloomy nights,lackluster days,
Dolorous eyes sob until they dry!

Aloha, People call me time,
I turn the pages of the 'Life' titled book,
Be it merriment, be it gloom,
Nothing is forever, I pull the hook!

No Saint, No Doctor can heal like I do,
Absolutely no one on this terra firma,
More important is for people to realize,
Events occur fitting in with their karma!

So people come, live and receive,
Page after page, until the book dies,
Encounter in life both sorrow and joy,
When beatitude knocks the door to wipe the cries!

twitter-chitter....music's here!

It sends you into dreams,
It brings you back to reality,
It escalates your pace of thoughts,
It slows you down from agility!

An obvious question you may ask,
By the way, what is it?
An invalid response I shall give,
It is not music, thats not it!

Man is an extreme tyrant,
Even metals have not been spared,
He has made copper carry anti-phony,
Ducted it into wires if it dared!

But man is also a great achiever,
The wires carry euphony too,
A small earplug or a huge receiver,
Music flows, a mighty roar or a feeble moo!

When plugged into the ear,
It takes you to cloud nine,
Just a few number of pushes,
take you to the rhythm divine!

Conceived from any twitter,
a whistle, a roar, a shriek or a sigh!
The pattering rain drops on the soil,
Or the thundering clouds hung so high!

Music makes life beautiful,
Ask someone who cannot hear!
Music gives you strength and power,
Music allays all your fear!

Managing the unmanageable!

We had started with
tonnes of excitement,
It has all shrunk now
to grams of resentment!

The story is repetitive,
entangled in an infinite loop,
Initiatives are taken,promises are made,
Only to end with the starting whoop

It is human nature,
Is it not the common notion?
Is anyone bothered to change it?
Or do we wait for a magical potion?

He proposes to her,
She then gets betrothed to him,
They then struggle through the bond,
An otherwise lustrous life turns dim.

I am befriended by him,
we become the best of friends,
just one misunderstanding,
can change the friendship trends!

She is her kid sister,
full of energy, full of love,
And when he comes in,
she is an irate chicken and dove!

Effort is required,
no matter who you are,
to maintain a relation,
to become a star!

Getting into a relation is easy,
Living through it is difficult,
dedication and love can sail through,
be it any class, creed or cult!

Away from Him...

We bribe Him,
we kill Him,
then why in trouble,
do we revive Him?

We are mean,
We practice greed,
Even when he is always there,
We call Him, only in need.

He knows everything,
says nothing at all,
He gives everything,
stands always so tall.

An inch closer to Him,
relieves all the pain,
A prayer miles way from Him,
Does it go in vain?

People are corrupt,
not everyone,
He is kind to all,
not to a particular one!

Always remembered when perishing,
death takes closer to Him,
Forgotten every other time,
life goes away from Him

child's play!

As a child,
life was rife,
No worries, no hurries,
was there any strife?

running after the butterfly,
looking for wandering spiders,
sailing boats through rain water,
flying high on virtual gliders!

Then and now,
Is it fair enough to compare?
Even in this adulthood,
Is there a child to spare?

How much I wish,
I do the hakuna-matata,
But what pulls me back?
Is it the twenties' sonata?

For twenty-something,
I sound too old,
But now even a teenager,
gets wise as gold.

Wisdom cannot be bought,
so they say,
then why is it that this world,
has made it a child's play?

Suddenly Something!

This story is a work of fiction. But how much I wish it were true. I know, something like what I have written in the story is impossible, but only if it were true.Something that cannot happen in real life can happen in a story. Through this blog, I would like to share this story which many people like me would like to be a part of! Go on, read it! It is no magnum opus but has come out straight from my heart.June 1st is my dad's birthday and this story is dedicated to him.

Note: I have used some Marathi words in the story. Here are their meanings:
Baba: Father; Aai: Mother; Dada: Brother; Vahini: Sister-in-law; Tai: Sister

"Ten rupees for the coconut Saar" declared the coconut seller. I had a ten rupee note ready. Generally I make sure I have it ready. Looking for change can become very vexatious particularly when you are near a temple where everybody seems to be needing change. I handed over the money to him and left my slippers with that mute lady.

I was at the Raghavendra Swamy temple in Barkatpura. The place is gets pretty crowded on Thursdays which is considered the day of that God. This is what I like about being born in a Hindu family; you have so many options for worship and days reserved for each god. In that way, you won’t get bored of having to worship the same god, at the same time, you will worship some god or the other. Eventually, Sab ka malik ek hai, whomever you worship, it is going to go to that one god. After all this philosophy, let me come back to where I was. I visit that temple every Thursday. Earlier, when I used to live near by, it was easy to go to the temple every week. But now, since I have shifted to Ameerpet, at least 12kms away from the temple, I am really not able to make it to the temple every Thursday. That day I was there after three weeks. I was already feeling guilty for not being able to make it for such a long time.

I have a very special reason to visit that particular temple every week. When my Baba was alive, he used to go there every week without fail. He had much faith in Raghavendra Swamy. When I was a child, my father used to take me along with him occasionally. The temple, in spite of being situated amidst traffic and congestion, used to give me a strange peace of mind. There was a strange attraction towards the God’s idol. Spending ten minutes there still gives me so much pleasure and heartsease. After Baba passed away in 2003, I felt I could feel him in that temple. I could talk to him through God. That is what has been drawing me to the temple till date. It is four years now, I have been going to the temple regularly. Well, almost!

It was 7:30 in the evening. The clouds outside were bulking large over the temple into a huge black mass. The light color of the clouds, when I had started from the office, had turned into dark gray. It was going to be a heavy downpour, I had thought. The monsoons were not expected before June10th but these weather predictions are seldom accurate. There were already couple of showers in the last week of May, the pre-monsoon showers!

It was May 31^st. June 1^st was Baba’s birthday. I was missing him. I had more than one reason to visit the temple that day. I had to wish Baba birthday. When baba was amongst us, we used to go to a restaurant or Aai used to cook some delicious food and we used to bring some Ice-cream home. Our relatives used to come. Baba was a very gregarious person. He maintained good personal relations. He talked to everybody, all age groups. He was liked by all alike and disliked by few.

I was reminded of my dad’s last birthday. I was in my third year of Engineering. My exams were going on. We did not do much for the day. Tai had got some fine t-shirt for him. Baba liked wearing nice clothes. Though we were not financially sound then, he always made it a point to neatly press clothes without creases and wrinkles and wore them, from how many ever clothes he had. He was happy. Aai had cooked some delicious dishes. We had a hearty lunch and dinner. But it was a simple affair. We had decided that the next birthday will be a grander affair. Little had we known then that it was going to be his last birthday!

I shook myself back to the present and continued towards the temple’s entrance. I bent down to touch the doorsill of the main entrance of the temple. This gesture was a custom to show respect to the God, to mark the difference between an ordinary home and the God’s abode. I went inside, gave the coconut to the Pujari. He chanted mantras, broke the coconut and gave it back to me as Prasad. I bowed my head in respect, took the teerth and completed my eleven pradakshina. After I had finished all the routine I had formed over the days I visited the temple. I sat down on the floor and offered my regular prayer to God. “Hey almighty, bless me, my family and my friends. Keep us away from all the pains and sufferings. Keep everybody in good health and be with us always”.

Today more things were going on in my mind. I had to wish my dad for his birthday. I closed my eyes once again and digressed from the regular prayer, “Hey Bhagwaan, You are the only means by which I can send my wishes to Baba. Please send my wishes to him and tell him that we miss him very much. How much we wish he were with us today. Wish you a very happy birthday baba”. Just when I said these words, I heard a thank you. I was taken aback. Then I thought it must be someone thanking someone else in the temple. I did not open my eyes. I continued “Happy Birthday....” That’s when I heard it again “Thank you beta”. Startled, I opened my eyes in shock. I sat there with my mouth agape.

It was he. I could not believe my eyes. It was he indeed, standing there right in my front and smiling over me. It was Baba. He was wearing those ill fitting pajamas and that striped shirt that I had never liked. Behind his ear, I could see a part of the hearing-aid. He had a problem with his right ear. I rubbed my eyes, pinched my self just to make sure I wasn’t day-dreaming. But there he was, so alive and so real. I was thrilled, excited, astonished, happy and elated, all at the same time.

I jumped to my feet. I wanted to hug him but that’s not something I had ever done in my life earlier. I bent down and touched his feet. He blessed me. My eyes went damp. I could not believe my luck. But then, I was weary. I did not know how to react, what to say? I stood there, motionless, thinking of something to start a conversation. But nothing would come to my mind. It was he who broke the silence somehow sensing my awkwardness

“It has been a long time, you have put on a lot of weight since I have seen you last”.

I smiled in confession but said nothing. I had indeed put on lot of weight. I was around 55 or 60 kilos in 2003 and now I was well over 80 kilos but I had never thought it would be so obvious for him to see.

He continued, “So do you come here every Thursday like I used to?”

I nodded my head but still said nothing. It was as if I had forgotten how to speak.

I sensed he expected me to say something. Even I wanted to but somehow nothing came out of my otherwise blabbering mouth. Finally, I meted out courage and asked

“How are you baba? It is so good to see you after such a long time. I don’t know what to say, how to say, but I am extremely happy to see you.”

He smiled “Fine Kedar, It is ok. I know, I can understand. So what have you been doing all these years”?

Suddenly I realized we had met after four long years and so many things had changed since then. I had so many things to tell him, so many things to show and so many people to meet. I immediately took him by his hand outside the temple. I showed him the new bike that I had bought last year. “Look baba, this I have bought on my own. I am working as a software engineer in hi-tech city. I completed my engineering in 2005 finishing second in college, got a campus placement in a software firm. I went to Chennai for training. I dint like the job there and applied for a job here in Hyderabad and shifted here. I have been here for more than a year now. We don’t stay at Nallakunta any more. Dada has bought an apartment in Ameerpet. We all stay there. Dada got married in 2005. He and Vahini are not here. They are in the UK right now. Aai misses you a lot. She is also doing fine. She has become a very strong woman now. She manages the house very well.” I went on telling him everything, every small thing. Everything was all jumbled up. I just wanted to let him know everything. I told him about Tai. Initially he felt concerned but later he felt better when I told him she is very happy now with her husband. And I went on like that for a long time.

I had lost the track of time. I kept on talking and talking. It had been two hours now. Something in me was forcing me to tell him everything as quickly as possible. I had a feeling I may not get this chance again in life and time allotted for our meeting was coming to an end. Was it the way he was listening to me or was it my insecurity, I don’t know! He was nervously twitching his face. My most dreaded fears were about to come true. Something in me had told me already what my father spoke after a few moments

“Kedar, I have to go. I was given two hours to spend with you and now they have come to an end. It was very nice talking to you after such a long time. You have become very responsible now and that gives me immense pleasure and satisfaction. The values that I and your mother imbibed in you are still present. I want you to be like this always. Take care of your mother. She needs you. Give my love to her and Kaustubh and what did you say is the name of my daughter in law?”

“Shital” I replied, shocked and helpless.

“Ah yes. Shital. I am sorry, I forgot! Also give my love to Kavita and Sanjay. Remember, I will always be there with you in you. I am very happy to see you all so happy. Love you. Goodbye”

He started towards the temple entrance. I ran towards him. I bent down and touched his feet. He was leaving me, once again. It took a long time to realize this. I wanted to do so many things for him. I wanted to take him to our new home, show him so many things. I wanted to buy some cool things for him. I wanted to do everything that I had not been able to do all these years. But all my hopes were shattered. As I watched him go inside the temple, tears started to roll down cheeks and fell directly on to my naked feet. There was no way I could stop him. I never felt so helpless ever in my life.

I cried out loud “Baba”.

He turned around, smiled and waved me good bye. I waved back. He turned around and went inside. I saw him go towards the God’s idol. Others were oblivious to his presence. He went right past the priest who was making preparations for closure of the temple. He went into the idol and disappeared.

I looked at the god’s idol. I felt like cursing him for not allowing me to spend more time with my father. But then I thought, I at least got a chance to meet him. I felt better. I felt lighter. I smiled and returned back to the mute lady who was holding my slippers. I gave her a ten rupee note. She was counting back change in return. I stopped her and wore my slippers and left. I was very happy. I had spent two of my most memorable hours with my father. It was the greatest day of my life.

It had started to rain heavily.