A CUP OF TEA……

It is 2’o clock at night and I find myself sitting on the old, crippled bench on roadside teashop. I have decided against narrating my cause for being at such a place at such time. But, just to give you an idea, I had been working continuously for 2 hours and failed to find a proper solution to the problem at hand. The weather itself was not too great, so even while I was sitting outside I could feel no breeze, even at this time, thus obviously making it difficult for me.

Sorry, I have this peculiar habit of digressing into insignificant details when they can very easily be avoided. The reason I write this is that somehow I feel that I have degraded as a human being.

Living in this decadent world thriving on iniquity, I found that even I have been influenced by it. My reason for saying this is that while sitting on that crippled bench, I witnessed the state of poverty in India. I saw this young kid and his brother make me tea, {at this age where they should be going to school and not waking up nights to serve tea on roadside}, a beggar asleep on a four wheeled cart used by hawkers, a rikshaw puller half asleep on his rikshaw, another kid half-naked playing with stones, indifferent towards the trucks passing by at full speed. While I saw all this strangely I did not feel a thing.

Had I been a human being I would certainly felt something, but I had this strange apathy towards all of this as if it was usual for such things to occur. I was not like this earlier but somehow I have transfigured into this strange obnoxious fellow, who cannot see others’ pains. I was thinking all this, while the events unfolding themselves infront of me told a sorry tale. The kid and his brother took rest in turns on a disfigured three-wheeler nearby. And I did not feel anything in my heart even then. I paid the kid and walked back to my room, discontent with myself. All along the way I felt sad, not about the poverty neither about the kids and the beggar. I felt bad because I did not feel that way. I had been a good kid, but somehow during the growing up process, I had lost my compassion and soul or may be I had been robbed of it.

“ Is this what my mom wanted me to be?”, I asked myself. . But the discussion seemed fruitless and so did the introspection.

I went to my room, switched off the computer, and decided to go to sleep. I know I could not answer the question honestly, so hence I to put the matter to rest. I don’t know what went wrong where, I don’t know what kind of a being I am going to end up as, but I know one thing for sure I am not the only one at fault, for the change in me….But for now I feel as if I have hit rockbottom…

Signoff:::

“Sometimes I wonder... will God ever forgive us for what we've done to each other?

Then I look around and I realize. God left this place a long time ago.”

-Blood Diamond

I wrote this one for a community post.Thought it was good enough to be posted here.

Hiding in a lie,
.........i fake a smile,to be with you.
Living in recluse,
.........i party all night ,to be with you.
Drenched in pain,
.........i laugh out loud,to be with you.
Bruised and hurt,
.........i heal others,to be with you.
Sick and tired,
.........i'll run a mile, to be with you.
Down and out,
........i besiege the world,to be with you.
Tears run down my cheek,
.......but still i fake a smile,for the sake of being with you...

TIME-TROUBLE

I have been thinking of writing this one for a long time now. Till now I have only written about some truths and done a little bit of surgeon-like dissection of facts. I have always tried to present facts, without bending them to suit my needs. Well in this one I try out an entirely different genre, and it might not come out well. But still taking a little liberty I try out my hand at fiction. The story proceeds thus:

Not so long ago there lived a boy called Timothy Green in a sleepy little town of Picaris inhabited by ordinary people like ourselves. No elves, no fairies had ever been seen in the town and it was rare to find people discussing about them. Tim as he was called by those who knew him, was also an ordinary plain boy, a boy who played soccer all day and still managed to complete his homework quite like a lot of young boys living around him. But he loved going to school not because he loved studies but because he had a special friend whom he was only able to meet in school as she lived far from his house.

Lily lived on the outskirts of the Picaris and had to take a bus to come to school. She was also fond of her school. Studying in seventh grade with kids of her age, with whom she could play in the intermission and chatter in-between classes, gave her enough of a reason to go to school everyday.

Like everyday she was playing hide and seek during the lunch break when suddenly someone hit against her while she was hiding behind a pillar. That someone was Tim, and Lily started scolding him, “Of all the places in the school, you had to choose this pillar to hide behind, now we’ll both get caught!”. Tim said, “ Not if you remain silent”. For five minutes they both hid behind the tall and broad pillar silently, until Lily decided to speak, “Tim, we have been best friends for quite a time now, and I talked to my mom about you and my other friends, and how I really love this place and how I didn’t wish to leave it, but she always tells me that people change and things change as we move on in life. Promise me Tim that you will always remain the Tim I know, the Tim I like, the Tim I….”, with this the bell rang and Lily scurried off to her class with a shade of pink on her cheeks. Tim stood there and simply breathed out something which sounded like, “I promise”, with his eyes looking in the direction Lily had taken.

Five years passed. Lily’s mom had admitted her to a new school close to their house as soon as she had completed her class seventh. Tim had kept his promise and as a result now when he was in his final year at school Tim had no friend as he did not interact with people around him and kept all by himself. He had stopped going out with his friends after class eighth and kept himself locked up in his room. He did all this to avoid getting affected by worldly influences. He had seen how boys in his class had changed their hairstyles, and girls had stopped talking freely to boys. In short he had seen people around him change. In order to stay away from all this and keep his promise to Lily he had done all this, though he had not seen her after she left school.

And then one day he saw her, there she was having a pizza in the shop nearby, he went to her and introduced himself. She failed to recognize him, and then Tim left the place with a broken heart and wet eyes. The fault wasn’t Lily’s. Anyone would fail to recognize you if you appear in a public place with outdated clothes. But a fault had occurred, and it had made Tim lock up his door from inside leaving him to cry out alone.

He felt dejected and cheated. She was the one who had made him promise not to change with time and today she also had left him. He did not feel like living anymore. And thus with a heavy heart he continued shedding tears until he felt someone touch his head. He turned back sharply and saw a beautiful creature sitting behind him. It looked like a girl except for the fact that it had a pair of gleaming golden wings. Tim stood up, startled by this sudden apparition and weakly said, “Who are you? And what are you doing in my room?”

“Stay calm Tim. I am a fairy who has come to help you. My name is Tira. You have been a good boy Tim, and have never done anything wrong, so God sent me to help you find yourself again”., said the creature.

“I don’t need anyone’s help. I have suffered enough. I am not able to understand the fact why things, people and surroundings change, Why cannot they remain static. The sun, the moon, the stars they never change then why do we have to go through this?” inquired the lad, in visible anguish.

“You see Tim, you trouble yourself too much over this. The fact that you decided to keep a five year old promise speaks volumes about you.”

Tim wasn’t satisfied with this, “Why do people have to change ?”

“Who is your favorite player Tim? And why do you like him?” ,asked Tira.

“Federer without doubt, I like him because he never bows down against any opponent and gives his 100%, but what has this got to do with my question?”

“This has everything to do with your question That Federer is able to compete so well is because he adjusts his game well. I hope you understand when I say that he has actually evolved himself. He takes the level of play to an entirely new dimension. Or we can simply put it as, that he has changed the way tennis is played.”- replied Tira.

“I think I am beginning to understand you Tira, but what is the use of such a change in life?”-inquired Tim. He wasn’t sad anymore but was rather intent on knowing more from his heavenly friend.

“What you call change, I call metamorphosis. You see Tim, when you chose to freeze time for yourself, you decided to violate the most basic law of nature. It is the destiny of the caterpillar to change into a butterfly. If a caterpillar refuses to develop, it is playing with its own fate. By changing I don’t mean that you become an entirely different person rather you groom yourself to face the challenges of life. A baby bird has to learn to fly, it cannot remain in the nest forever. Some people change for good others for bad but they do change, that is the rule and when you decide against it, not only do you hurt yourself but you also hurt the people around you who care for you.”- came the reply from Tira.

“I think I get you now. I promise you that I would never again force things on myself.”. No sooner had Tim said that than Tira disappeared in a flash of golden light so bright, that Tim was forced to shut his eyes. When he reopened his eyes he could see the rising sun through the window of his room.

First time in last five years had he woken up early enough to witness the birth of a new day……….

With this I complete my experiment on writing styles. If you have read this far I thank you. Please forgive me if you found the piece boring. It was my first ever attempt at writing such a thing. Now I sign off with a quote from a movie I watched recently:

“Artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up.”

- V for Vendetta

Previous blogs :

http://anurag3.blogspot.com

http://erebus-on-earth.blogspot.com

http://seekerleo.blogspot.com

http://leoheel.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/04/i-sat-for-a-while.htm

In this one I do not intend to find faults in anyone, or frame charges against people and authorities {they seem to have got me into quite a trouble lately},but rather describe one of my infirmities.

I somehow have been able to nurture a fear of animals ever since the day I was born into this world. No matter in what package they come I am simply afraid of them, small pets, stray dogs, elephants and even cows. But if I had to single out one species it would be DOGS. They simply send a chill down my spine with their canines protruding out aiming to get a taste of your meat. What’s worse is the fact that everytime I see a dog a small sermon {which my tuition teacher hung on his gate} comes to mind:

“Our dog doesn’t bite, he chews”

The incident that triggered the creation of this blog is thus:

Its four in the morning and I wake up from sleep with a dry mouth. I grope for the water bottle in the darkness, but I think somehow the bottle managed to grow some legs that night, so that when I switched on the light I found it resting under the bed. I picked it up, and as usual.. no water. So I decided to get it filled, I knew there would be no water in the hostel at this time and I would have to walk to the senior’s hostel to get some water. But at the time of crisis one requires quick and brave decisions, and so I made mine.. seconds later I was climbing down the stairs, half sleepy ,half exhausted, half frustrated {deliberate mathematical error } with my water bottle hoping to get some water in the other hostel. I had anticipated my walk to be peaceful, but as soon as I reached the entrance of Tandon Hostel two dogs woke up and started barking at me. I didn’t want to sustain any injuries so I decided to turn back. But no sooner had I turned back than I saw them rushing towards me. I froze then and there. I was time for another quick decision. I had only two choices either to run or to face them. I decided to embark on the latter. I picked a small pebble and shouted at the top of my voice warning them to stay back, all the time holding the pebble like a dagger. To my surprise I found both of them running away with their tail between their legs. And so with a feeling of ecstasy I walked ahead into the hostel, filled my bottle, drank heavy doses of that once illusive nectar, and after I had quenched my thirst I crawled back to my room switched off the light and lay down on the bed.

But sleep was not to be. Random thoughts came to my mind. All this had happened on Good Friday and I was now thinking about my fear of animals and how my dad had once told me that man was much worse than animals in many cases and that how man had done acts which would even make animals ashamed of themselves. I thought about the Passion of the Christ and how he had suffered so much on this day, and I thought about the kingdom of heaven, the place he was born, how Jerusalem had turned red from the blood spilled in the area. I thought of the dialogue between Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connely in Blood Diamond when Jennifer talks about how people were more concerned about Clinton and Monica rather than noticing how the world was falling apart to which Leonardo replies: “When was the last time it wasn’t falinng apart”. And finally I decided what the heck !! I have not done anything bad why should I lose my sleep pondering over it. So I tuned my back like everyone else and went to sleep…