The drawing Lines

If you look back ..long back ....you might remember that drawing lines were the first things that were taught to us. It was horizontal lines, vertical line, slanting lines and so on ...It was also taught how you can join them to make letters and then letters into words.This also symbolically teaches us to etch out a meaningful life - in a sense you are provided with the data to make your life. The onus is on us how we mix and match those life lines.


I just wish we could use the same fundamentals of drawing lines and write our life HAPPY ... but then it is not so simple. There are so many variables in the equation - the biggest of it is again ..the lines drawn on our palms at the time of birth. The lines of destiny - these are the ones that partly defines the story of your life. The other part is of course the trials and the errors and the choices that we make through the journey.

Since we know that a part of life is defined - and the irony is, it is in our palms. We just need to open the palms to unleash the super-natural energy given to us by eternity. Open your palms, flex your hands and get started in the journey of your life - the choices have to made by you. This freedom to make choices is what makes our life worthwhile, adventurous and thrilling. This unknown in the equation drives us forward, keeps the excitement intact and pushes us providing the required momentum.

Agreed, the choices sometimes may be wrong - you might fail or fall. But you always have another chance - get up and get going. Look ahead - the road that you see is not torturous, its full of thrills and adventures. Think about the roller-coaster ride, you enjoy the ride only because it has ups and downs - so is life. It has to be enjoyed through all the troughs and crests.

Take the step ...and always remember the one great motivational saying "
jo hoga dekha jaaega...".

The little girl

It's a hot summer afternoon.It's the time for regular power cut - incidentally this coincides with the lunch time!! I was in subway ordering my sub of the day - complaining all the while that the air conditioner is not working, it so hot and sweaty in here and so on ....

 Nevertheless i got my sub and occupied the table which overlooks the main road near by. Sometimes I like the feel of stopping and seeing the world rushing ahead , people vying to overtake each other in the never ending war of me-first.


Sandwiched between the main road and the place where i was munching on my sub was a small strip of land with a summer-tired tree with a shady patch below it. I could see four people preparing their things and ready to sit down in the shade. Two of them were men - the face and the demeanour showing that they are hard working labourers - the skin shining black - not because they were born black - it was a face severly worn down by weather and hard work. There was a lady - her face having a similar look. But the most interesting person was - a girl around 7-8 years old. The excitement of life and events showing from her innocent eyes.She had long hairs and wore a decent good looking dress - squatting, now waiting eagerly for her mother to serve her meal. Her face and her eyes so full of happy expectation - her mother started serving and i could see a big portion of rice being served on her small plate. And then a very small portion of Sambar along with a piece of pickle. My intent look shifting from the plate to her face and back. I was expecting, her face will change - the exciting look giving way to frustration and disinterest but nothing of that sort happened. She was still jubilant at what she saw on her plate - took the plate and started to eat. The face still radiating the happiness and contentment that comes with having a good meal.

They all finished their food and started gathering their things to start another session of hard work on this blazing summer afternoon.

My sub was half finished - suddenly all my sulking and complains vanished. I dont know why - but i thanked God for all the things that he has bestowed on me. There was a silent prayer for that girl too - may God bless her with all the happiness and my God keep her exuberant face as it is. I know the face might get shadowed by the upheavals of the life but let her heart be filled with happiness and contentment that i saw on her face today.


I know i may not see her or her family any time in future - but i think i will remember the little girl for making me a wee bit more wiser. With that thought in my mind i walked back to my office - but in some corner of my mind i think the little girl will always stay.

The house sparrow

There was a report saying that the house sparrow has been added to the endangered list - it is a shame that a bird so abundant in our growing up days has reduced so much in number.
 After reading the report it stuck me that I had not seen those birds for a long time - these were the birds with which we grew up in a small town called Rourkela. There was a time when if somebody mentioned the word bird - sparrow was what came to mind.

 They were companions through the whole day - the excited morning chirping to the lazy afternoon chirping and then again the maddening buzz of their home coming in the evenings.

I could hear them ( if not see them) in the mornings when I got up to get ready for school....in the afternoons when I was standing outside the classroom as a part of punishment....they almost took part in the games that we played after the school.

Strange, that they slowly diminished and then vanished from our lives and I am taking note of it just now ....This is what we have made of ourselves ...we have become so oblivious to our immediate surroundings that it took me almost 20 years to notice the fact that these childhood friends of mine have gone by. Their complaints and the struggle so un-seen, so unfelt...and so unheard.

Women's day

I really think that the women are one of the greatest miracle creation of the God. I would still keep the child birth as the greatest Miracle.
Miracle why?For a starters do you think that the procreation would have been possible without them.It is only how their bodies have adapted to the process of child birth that help us go through one generation to next.
Mtasking - Sometimes i think that's the reason most of the times all goddeesses have been depicted with so many hands.
Will power - it's their will power that allows them to leave their own homes, own parents own family and come to a complete new family. And the icing on the cake is they embrace the new family and environment so whole heartedly. It is strange and it is great and it is wierd.Long years back - i still remember how i cried when my sister got married and left us for a new family. She was great - i remember her getting me ready for school - she would tie my tie and tie my shoes and even put "kajal" to my eyes. And in the end she would comb my hair until it was in a particular style. And then i was off to school.The days have gone so far but i still remember the tenderness and the love that was laced through all the actions she did.
Patience - well this was a revelation for me as well. I used to think that i had a lot of patience always and at all times. My notion seems to be so completley wrong now - when i see my wife handling our 2 year old kid. It's a treat to watch. I wonder now how come she has become patience personified. But then that's how MOTHER is for you.
Mother - i think that word should be the synonym for miracle or even GOD herself/himself.How else can you ever explain - the so giving nature of a human being. How can you explain the patience and the suffering that she goes through to just keep you happy.She can be so soft, she can be very strict and she can metamorphose into a tigress the moment she smells danger. There are so many different forms of her. And it is no surprise that our mythology is replete with godesses who don all these different "avatars" at different times.
The love - I remember when we were expecting our baby - how at all times i would be worrying about the well being of the baby's mother, whether she has taken medicines, whether she is feeling ok. And during all these times i would see her patting and stroking the child within her so lovingly and passionately. I could see how completely she was in love with the yet unborn child.

This is an ode to all women and all mothers out there who sometimes may feel left out and discriminated. But i know you will have the patience and will power to overcome all those hurdles and be the MIRACLE you are. Just be YOU - as are the greatest.

The Olfactory sensors

I really feel strange how different types of smell(we used to call it this way whether it was a good scent or a bad smell :)) gets associated with different types of memories.
The very simple biscuit by Parle or Brittania takes me back to school days where we used to wait ever so eagerly for the 2 biscuits that we received during our recess. The smell still so fresh but the days so long gone. Mary was the old lady who used to bring those bisucits to all the classes - hope she is still around. We never thanked her during those days but today when i remember her i thank her silently.

When the season moves from winter to summer in between comes the days when you see all the leaves on the ground and the trees standing tall and barren. The smell of these times triggers the fear of exams. Still i get those fluttering butterflies in my stomach. Still it brings back memories of how unfinished my lessons were and we used to rote the lessons in the very last moment - stranger still is, i remember those roted lessons to this day.

Even today when i buy a new book i turn the pages and first smell it - it takes me back to times when we joined a new class and brandished our new books from our overloaded bags.If you have a book from that era try going through the pages and smelling it once - you will go back to the same room, same bench of the same class.

When i go for a stroll in the wintry night today the scent of fresh dew on the grass transports me to the lanes of our colony where we grew up as a child.That childhood and that colony seems to be so out of this present world. I really wonder was that in this life or another....

The incense sticks have their own story to tell - it used to be the smell that you woke up to in the mornings - mother - the greatest of all the Gods - would have already started her puja for well being of her kids. This used to be the start of her day of unending chores - i wonder how we got everything ready at the right time - be it tiffin box for school, be it the well washed and well ironed school dress, be it the snacks in the evening. I really wonder how could she do everything sigle-handedly whole day for so many years unerringly and untiringly.

I really thank our Maker for weaving such an intricate connection between the smell and the memories - especially because both entities are intangible but still they evoke so powerfull emotions in the human mind.

The HUM...

The story goes back a long way - about the time when I was 6 or 7 years old. My father used to drop me to school on the ATLAS cycle that he had. I used to sit in front - on the cycle rod with my two legs on two sides and feets resting on the front mud gaurd. Strange scene if you think about it now but it was norm those days. And i used to be so happy riding that way - the school scare all forgotten. The school was about a couple of kilometers from our home and it was a ride with up and low gradients both. But what always keeps coming back to my mind about all this is - my father used to hum all the way to school. It was not any particular song as such, it was just a hum and he would do that only at that time of day - when he was taking me to school. He was not into music in any way so i am sure that it was not a song - i used to think that i would give anything to know what that hum was....Now i do not think of deciphering it any more - because i think i know what it was ......
Change to another time and another era.......
I am new to fatherhood - got an 8 month old angel. When he cries or when he is scared i hold him close to myself and instantaneously start "humming" away his fears. And i know that i am not singing anything in particular - i am just soothing him and allaying his fears and apprehensions.
That's the reason i have stopped trying to decipher the hum of my father because i think i have inherited the same 'hum' from him.

...gone to humans

Today's newspaper mentioned in small print - 720 sq km of ice sheet broken off from the antarctic and gone into the sea.
It is strange that nobody bothers about the havoc being caused by the global warming - everyone thinks it is alien to them and so nobody gives it a damn. But damned will be they, when the effect accumulates and will be given back as "earnings" in compound interest. Nature is the biggest banker - it gives everything in kind - good for good and bad for bad.
We have been already getting the Level 5 tornadoes and typhoons, earthquakes measuring 8-9 on richter scale, highest tsunamis of the known times. What else one needs to experience before they know that they have been doing something wrong. But no - everybody is just closing their eyes and going on with their big bad carbon footprints.
Well to know the effects we can just go take a peek outside - this is summer season now, May has just started and the temperature is to soaring unimaginable 47-48 degrees centigrade.

So beware humans you have been scouring the heart of mother earth for thousands of year now - well how long one can tolerate.

There was a time when it was said" the state of affairs is going to dogs" but now i dare say " the state of affairs is going to humans" and still the meaning remains same.


http://www.livescience.com/environment/090429-total-carbon.html