On March 8

I have nothing magnanimous to say about women. We have been talked and written about profoundly since time immemorial.

We have been an artist's pampered interest, a sculptor's most precious mould, a lush green meadow for writers , since ages, to ruminate on.
We have enamoured poets from Donne to Neruda, embalmed their verses by our proverbial beauty.

We remain a conundrum to the world. They almost poetically say 'A woman's heart is akin to an intricate maze. One can't find his way out.'
They talk about woman so mystically, so unworldly as if she IS 'otherworldly' . To such generosity, we gracefully yet matter of factly say 'Thank you but we are not Aliens. We are mere earthlings of flesh and bones, with a heart and a soul.. very much like you!'


We feel venerated, we feel overwhelmed to receive such accolades. But still, when we look into the dismal corners of the world where we are given a deplorable, cattle like treatment, we don't fail to see the futility of such pompous laurels bestowed on us. At such deplorable times,we agonizingly implore the world, 'We are human, don't be inhuman to us. We need nothing more.'

8th March becomes a fallacy , a hypocrytic chivelry if we donot get the bare minimum human treatment. Is it too much that we expect? Aren't we all entitled to love and be loved? Empower us with love ..the prime impetus and we shall scale heights, unfathomable .

8th of March, like every other day, should be a day to celebrate 'Human'hood and not Womanhood alone.

Being an island

No more do I want to write about a whining conscience. Not even about a distraught mind for I am tired of writing about the mundane. I don’t fancy writing about an imaginary muse and I can’t even let a jilted heart meander through fabricated verses of unrequited love. I don't wish to philosophize and preach borrowed wisdom.

No! I can’t for I wish not to evoke any sympathy nor any embellished sentiment. I don’t want to make my reader feel anything. I don’t want to be smothered with his opinions. As a matter of fact, I do not even wish to be read.

Don’t expect me to be artful with words since I don’t write for you, my dear reader. I can’t juggle with metaphors and simile . I can’t even concoct a story but please don’t pity my incompetence, I have a reason behind my incapability.

If I were to describe how my heart feels at this very moment, I would say, I bear a neutral heart. A heart that knows no joy, no pain, no love, no life, no death, no fear, no anger, no regret, no burden! I bear a heart which knows nothing else other than its primal physiological function . A homogenous heart that beats uniformly a singular feeling of ‘ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS’.

It is during these moments, when my heart and mind are in unison ..a perfect concordance for they are both enwrapped under a blanket of bizarre numbness.
There is no ovulation of thoughts in me. I rake through this ashen nothingness to find even one lone seed of a ‘thought’ but in vain. I conceive a complete void and I am enigmatically wordless!

I try to borrow words from a Thesaurus to find a better adjective for this feeling but I keep turning pages. I ransack every corner only to be left disappointed. I can’t even borrow words and here again, I repeat, I am not to be pitied. For me, words have lost their aroma, their texture, their sonority . Now,they don't ring the same way in my ears as they used to, they don't catapult my desire to write. I often wish if I could do without words. Sometimes, words create an asphyxiating labyrinth. There was a time when words were my darlings, my little ballerinas that danced to my tunes. Now, they are stumbling blocks.

This nothingness is contagious. I see it spreading outside me in a miasmatic fashion. The miasma gradually forms a sea and I feel marooned like an island , miserably amputated from the rest of the world . As far as my vision spreads, I see nothing.

I wonder if this sea has any shore.

A page from my Diary

I wonder , how good a thing a conscience is! It never really answers your dilemma. Instead, throws a volley of questions and each question with two equally tempting answers , of which , you have to choose one. It sees things through its black and white kaliedoscope. It knows no other color.

Sometimes, conscience acts carcinogenic. It perturbs you, unsettles you like a terminal disease that you can't quite medicate. It feels inhuman to be convicted time and again in its court. Conscience can never be lenient. It knows and seeks for nothing but truth.

As they axiomate , 'A life without conscience is unyielding'. I doubt how large a base such emphatic sayings really hold. The proverbial conscience is a brutal critic, a nagging step mother, an unloving cold wretch.
... I often tend to believe, I would have done much better without it. I could have lived a happier and a guilt free life. I could have been more savage, more wild following MY instincts.

I need liberation from this banal scrutiny. I wish to live free even if I were to live like a debauched Mafia or a bad outlaw. What is living free like, asks the bird in the golden cage.

On a burning ghat

There's a certain inexplicable something about 'The Burning Ghats' in Varanasi. Two days ago, I happened to witness such a place. The cremation ground was weighing with dead bodies, pyres and ashes. Around 6-7 pyres were set aflame and the fire was consuming them with an infernal joy.

Chunks of burnt wood were dropping from the pyre and the fire burnt deliriously. Clouds of smoke forming in the atmosphere as if the spirits of the dead danced madly on the tunes of an unsung cosmic rhythm.

People shoveled the ashes to clear the ground to prepare it for the next pyre. I witnessed a strange continuity something like-chapters were read, books then discarded and new books brought. The cycle went on. A virtuous cycle!
... There wasn't a sign of melancholy anywhere, no grimace. I saw faces flooded in tears but that wasn't saddening.

I couldn't take my eyes off the burning pyres. I saw a mad dance of destruction...a destruction that harbingers a new beginning....'creative destruction' , that may be put as.

There were heaps of ashes and I wondered how could one differentiate between charred wood and charred flesh. Both looked identical. There wasn't a stench of burning flesh anywhere. On the contrary, it smelled of nothing. Death has no smell. The fire purifies the enveloping ambience. It gulps the stench, the diseases and the impurities.

I saw people emptying pitchers containing ashes in the Ganges. I saw the ashes flowing with the air , getting immersed in water as if the ash now formed a part of the cosmos. The body, thus , never leaves the earth. It still sustains on Earth as a particle or more fundamentally, an atom. It becomes a part of the biosphere.
I can't say where the spirit goes. May be, it sets anew to finish its Karmic cycle or may be it merges with the Eternity. I don't quite know. Nobody knows, in fact.

Those few minutes on the cremation ground instilled in me a virtuous, a pious truth that Death isn't a stop. Its a stoppage where life takes a momentary halt to begin its caravan again.

Annexation

I have been eyeing on a province lecherously , devising stratagems to annex it but in vain. They say , if I could conquer over it, I shall be all powerful.

The possible outcomes of the annexation are very enticing. I try relentlessly but I reach nowhere.

The subjects of the Province are rather delirious, they have no ruler to administer them. They run astray with no authority to rein them. They go berserk, they go frantic, they go extremes like a wild mad horse running amuck with no one to lasso it.

But, howsoever , deranged they may be, they have a potential immense. If used properly, they could yield wonders. I decided to churn out their potentials , to extract their genius for my favor.

The territory is but a small topographic entity. Howsoever small sized it may be, I can’t give up the avarice to annex it. I want it, anyhow, at any cost.

I have seen its soil. The alluvium is of the most superior quality. If one could irrigate it, it shall yield the best crops, its trees shall be laden with the best fruits…fruits that would be ambrosial in nature. But, I see no one irrigating it. The land stands idle and apparently looks barren. The trees are leafless let alone any fructification. I have decided to reap the benefits of its land. I shall see to the day when its trees shall be borne with Ambrosia.

I dream of the day when I shall pronounce my kingdom ship over the subjects and they shall work under my administration as one being…United... I shall bring about a fraternal brotherhood among them. There shall be no chaos, no speck of disorder and no delirium. There shall be Concordance , Bonhomie and Peace. I shall aspire for the productivity of the highest quality.

The Province has a quite popular name. They call it 'The Mind'

Is this THE ONE?

I sit in front of this blank piece of paper, rather numb with a wistful desire to ink it with one of those writes that I would be simply penning down but it shall, in actual, be a decree of the Providence…my pen, as if , dictated by some mystic power, shall just run an errand of His.

The pen shall run effortlessly , its ink forming letters , thus words and thus sentences…my pen, as if, possessed by the divine spirit.

I still stare at this piece of paper point blank waiting for His command…my motor senses waiting with baited breath for the time when they would involuntarily lift the pen and start expressing what they have been commanded to.

I write this scrawling while I wait for His decree. His decree shall be far more superior than this filthy thing that I have been writing that makes no sense, whatsoever. After all, how can a low despicable wretch like me, compete with the one who is immaculate, with the one who is invincible, with the progenitor of the Universe, of the galaxy, of the countless stars, of the sun, the planets, the solar system and several such systems that we still have a very inconspicuous idea about, the creator of all that which is still unknown to us, our Father… ?
How could I ever compete with the all pervading, the omnipotent , the omniscient?

The waiting still continues. It’s a long wait indeed. Doubts start arising in my mind regarding if ever I shall be decreed by Him, if ever I shall be bestowed on the privilege to run an errand for Him.

As time passes, my faith in THE DECREE fades. I feel there must be some obstacle between His declaration and my pen. An obstacle equivalent to darkness, to ignorance.

Now, I wait for this darkness to wane. Even the mighty earth waits for the sun’s rays for eight long minutes to illuminate it, can’t I wait for some more time before He illuminates me with His Word?

Meanwhile, I prepare the reservoir in me. I cleanse it. I remove the clutter so as to make space for the Word to ensconce itself comfortably.

Then, all of a sudden, a thought settles in me and sets my mind afire. Thoughts are indeed inflammable. My faith starts forming roots anew with that one last realization that if He is the creator of all, if everything around is His design then that implies that even I am one of His designs, even I have a part of His in me that I need to unearth by digging myself, by delving deeper in the oceans in me.

I come to realize that there is no reason that shall keep me aloof from His divine intervention, of His decree. Its bound to come or may be it has come in the form of this very write that I had previously, so disrespectfully deemed as ‘a filthy scrawling’.

Bellum

I heard the clouds rumbling , the sky distraught and overcast. The good old Phoebus too frightened to fight the marching clouds. He hid himself somewhere yet streaks of his golden hair could be seen behind the retinue of clouds , through the cracks in them. Then , slowly, not a single strand of his golden hair could be spotted. The sky was weighing with clouds. Their army in a belligerent mood. They wanted to confront the earth, to beat it with their pouring.
The clouds burst and lightening shrieked and thus ordered its army to attack. It thundered It rained , it rained and the unarmed earth put down slain.
The gusty winds rustled through the trees , assaulted them. The poor ones shuddered in fear.
The clouds announced their victory with one loud deafening roar. I closed my ears as tightly as I could.

The sky couldn’t bear the torment anymore and at once commanded the clouds to cease fire. And, the clouds having drained their belligerence , retracted.

The old Phoebus came out slowly with diffident steps, replacing an obscure murky sky with a lucid blueness.
Phoebus smiled enchantingly .
His golden locks shimmered and a rainbow arched against the vault of the sky.