The Unseen Thread

Scene 1

Scene opens: Two farmers talking at a distance, a young hermit sitting under a tree deep in meditation

Farmer 1: “Who is this strange sage, I have never seen someone so deep in meditation? I had once met a rishi from the Himalayas, he told me that meditation was a way to connect to God, however he never talked about a meditation after starving yourself”

Farmer 2: “I have heard he is some dethroned king looking for salvation. I wonder why he chose our city. He had the Himalayas to go to. Everyone goes there to meditate!”

Farmer 1: “Anyways I have got lots of work to do. You keep admiring him while I finish my chores”

(Farmer 1 walks off)

Farmer 2 walks closer to the hermit and watches him for some time. The farmer knew that the hermit had been sitting under the tree more 48 days now and had neither risen nor had eaten anything. He wondered what madness drove this lunatic so much that he wished to die of hunger while meditating. The farmer was of a kind heart though, and wanted to help the hermit. So he decided to wait there for sometime hoping that the hermit would open his eyes and he would then ask him if he needed any food or water.

So, the farmer silently whispered in the hermit’s ears, “I will wait here for some time. If you plan to open your eyes and eat something, just tell me” and sat down. No sooner did he sit than the hermit opened his eyes and smiled at the farmer.

Farmer 2 was a little surprised and said, “So you actually were hungry!”

The hermit kept smiling and replied, “Not anymore!”

[Scene closes]

Scene 2 (Post war scene)

Bodies lie pell-mell, with red blood strewn all over them. Bows, arrows and spears all red with blood thrown around carelessly. One man stands in the middle of it all with tears in his eyes. He walks up to one body after another crying endlessly, frantically. He was looking for something, someone probably and suddenly stops. He falls down on his knees and picks up the body of an old lady.

The wailing gets louder as the man hugs the dead old lady close to him. His eyes, redder than the blood flowing, filled with remorse, guilt and pain, look up seeking redemption. He falls down un-conscious.

[Some hours later]

He wakes up in his camp. Still no word spoken. He lifts his sword and arrows and places it down on the ground and folds his hands kneeling down before the bodies lying in front of him.

Little did he know that he was about to write history on stone (literally!)

[Scene closes]

Scene 3

Two gentlemen seated in a makeshift meeting room consisting of a table, two chairs, two teacups and a briefcase. The older of the two seems animated and starts off, “Don’t worry now, you just leave the briefcase here and sleep peacefully”.

The younger man gives a sheepish smile, folds his hands and leaves the room. Another man enters the room and complains, “Sir, it is wrong! Taking money for granting a project is ok, but this would put lives of a thousand common men in jeopardy!”

The older man retorts, “Shut up! Just do as I say and you will get your share too!” The man shakes his hand as if dismissing all complaints and gets back to his unfinished tea.

The younger, seemingly displeased, lifts the briefcase and leaves the room.

[Few months later]

A newspaper headline reads, “Train derails near Kushinagar, as newly constructed bridge collapses. More than 700 feared dead.”

[Scene closes]

The ideas that should have paved the way forward for a new India somehow got lost in the sands of time. A young prince disregarded all his wealth and left his home in search of truth, because he could not bear the pain which he saw people suffering from. An emperor probably the greatest ever, wrote down in stone the facets of effective governance. Yet very few pay heed to it!

The thread that should have been a binding force for our nation has either been lost or chooses to remain invisible.

The Lost Pages

Imagine a child, a very young child, too innocent to understand the meaning of money, power and politics, whose restless hands are constantly itching to play with a new toy, given a book to read, as a gift. The child overwhelmed by his twitchy fingers tears off pages from the book, strewing them all over the house.

Now imagine, God being that child and that book containing the story of our lives. God being too arrogant and 'god-like' to make things easy for humans, enjoys ripping apart the story book of our lives and throwing the pages all over, like the child earlier. While we live, breathe, walk, smile, cry, dance, admire, love, get loved etc. all of us are picking up those lost pages of our life book trying to make sense of the ‘story’ as it unfolds and hoping to figure out the climax before it is reached!

For the past many years I have been picking up those lost pages trying to make sense of ‘my story’ but the only thing that I have learned is that God is an amazing mystery story writer, because ‘my story’ (like yours too) is one with amazing twists, dramatic scene shifts, soothingly funny incidents and agonisingly sad moments. No matter how hard we try to predict the occurrences in a mystery novel, by the time the novel ‘finishes’ we understand how naive we had been all the while. We try to judge ‘characters’ as good and bad, classifying ‘acts’ into evil and angelic and assuming that story will proceed as we expect it to be, yes we all make the same mistakes. We never understand that “good and bad never exist in reality; rather they are mere false conclusions made by us about characters and events, without reading the novel till the very last word!”

Thus it is best to pick up the pages as and when we find them, keep them and hope that one day we find that elusive last page and be able to make complete sense of our lives!

Why I chose to write on ‘The Lost Pages’ is because this happens to be the blog title [click here]of a person I have learned to admire and respect a lot! Somehow he had figured out much earlier that life wasn’t an aimless dance of a falling leaf, rather it was a continuous search for the lost pages of your life. Hats off!

On a Valentine’s Day

As I woke up today with a shoulder that hurt like hell, the first thing I heard (read from a Gtalk SM) was about a blast in Pune. The day proceeded there on. It is Valentine’s Day and my day starts with the news of an act of utmost hatred! I have never felt comfortable with idea of having a single day celebrating love. And that day too has been disfigured and moulded into a money minting exercise by the ‘corporate’. This along with the bad news made me call up home and talk to the person I love the most, my mom. It had been a while since I had talked to her (the network here in Shillong does need a lot of work) so I obviously felt lighter after talking to her (although the talking was mostly from her side asking the usual queries about food, health and weather).

There are days when you want to dance and have fun and then there are days when you want a quiet place for yourself. Today happens to be the latter for me. There are people dying because of hunger, war and terrorism, yet we make farce celebration of humanity and love today. The true meaning of love has been lost and all that remains today is charred debris of a noble emotion. All of us wish to be happy and continuously strive for it and in this endless pursuit very few pay attention to a neighbor with a sad face. We have lost our reason, our thought process lies in shambles and yet we have the courage to stand up and make a happy face.

This is all that I’ll write for now. And if you believe that I am feeling low today, relax, my motto in life is simple and straightforward:

“When I am sad, I stop being sad and become awesome instead”

Barney Stinson (HIMYM)