My portion of the sky!

Don’t you feel you’re living in a concrete jungle,

With brick and mortar rising tall and high?

Often seeming to have a life of their own,

Springing up overnight where they weren’t before?

Sometimes in shapes resembling the next,

Oft one floor higher than the rest.

You hear the motor chugging, the drilling sounds echo,

The droning noise carries itself round and round,

Filling the air with a presence you just can’t ignore.

Don’t you feel your heart beat, in time to this tone?

There’s always work going on, something new being built,

You bet that’s another structure taller than the rest.

Are we any different from our predecessors?

Have we learnt any lessons from our ancestors?

Just beyond these concrete structures, the tombs you can see,

Of seven kings who reigned this land not that long ago,

Their only wish seemed, to be, bigger than the former,

And so, they built their own tombs magnificent and taller, than the rest.

Is it a wonder then, that my heart should sing,

When I see an empty plot right next to my inn?

It might be in line, waiting to spring,

A structure more grandiose than the ones next to it,

Till then I get more than the concrete jungle around,

Until then I have open access to a portion of the sky!

The Gift

It was a gift, a birthday gift,

One she'd asked her mother for,

Because her friends around where she lived,

Looked happy riding in one around. 

With smiles on their faces, light in their eyes,

They made it look easy to pedal back and forth, 

The wind in the hair and bells in the air,

Seemed to make them float around on those wheels.

Now she'd got one too, she was overjoyed,

The thrill of the ride would soon be hers too,

So thinking she took her bike to the streets,

With more enthusiasm than skill she possessed.

You guess what happened, I'll leave that to you,

In short, there was a lot of crying and bruised skin too,

Suddenly the much anticipated thing, 

Seemed to cause her more pain than the joy she'd presumed.

Later in the day, she wondered what to do,

Was it worth the pain to learn something new?

She sure wanted to feel the wind in her hair, 

She decided to persevere till she could smile through her fears!

The Phantom Friend

He had just a couple of days, 

To hop and skip and see the world,

With tiny wings he flew around,

Till he was sure he'd seen it all.

He wasn't sure, but thought he had,

Someone follow him close by,

Keeping up with his each step,

Silently, all day by.

Tried he did to peer and see,

Who it was that followed him,

Friend or foe he did not know,

Or was it just a flutterby?

Tired at last he called a halt,

Deciding to rest his tiny wings, 

And when he perched up on the wall,

He met his shadow, his phantom friend!

When life calls for Vitamin Sea

In the giant rush of all the madness that encompasses your life and the time that everyone wants a slice of you, there is always some place which is your refuge. That place which only our few closest ones know of. It could be the quiet corner in the library amidst those books which are not that frequented. It could have been that comfortable branch of the age old tree whose canopy leaves told you stories of days gone by while sunlight played hide and seek with you. If you were lucky, you’d have had a patch of a river bank where you could sit and watch the ripples in the water and practice your stone throwing skills, seeing how far you could skip those stones before they sunk.

If you were from the mountains, you’d have your own private view point where you’d have had a vantage position over the land and felt like the lord of all beneath and marveled at the various shades of the sky as the sun makes its journey in the sky. I’ve been fortunate to have had a glimpse of the solitude that each of these have had to offer. I’m partial to none of these, although, I do have fond memories of each. However, I for some reason, have always been drawn to the beach, the place as someone described where the land meets the sea and the sea meets the sky.

Being brought up in a coastal town could explain why the sea holds such a fascination. You might wonder, what’s so special? It’s just a mass of swirling water after all, washing ashore and then being pulled back like a well-worn routine, with grains of sand spread across miles of land which have the annoying habit of sneaking into your shoes and making it difficult to walk. The smell ain’t nothing much to write home about either.

I’d like to think that like mature wine or aged scotch, seaside is a solace that grows on you. You’d need to pick your time of visit with care as choosing to be in the beach in the middle of the day with the sun burning down on you or visiting late at night when the tide is high could be a bane. I’d stick with dawn or dusk.

The distinctive tangy smell of the sea is the first thing that greets you from over half a mile away before you reach the seashore or hear the sound of the waves crashing on the shore. Once you are closer, the grains of sand weave through your toes, greeting you like friends who’re glad to see you back. Some experiences are best enjoyed barefoot, and from this point forward would definitely be one among them.

The point where the waves come and lap at your feet like they are eager to play, but not sure if you can keep up with them, is one of my favorite spots to warm up. As I walk along the waterfront with the waves gently slapping at my feet, I’ve often rolled on my worries and the waves have at times lapped them right off me! I’ve enjoyed taking a turn amidst the waves and letting it lift me up along with the waves. They come rushing to meet you, like a long lost friend and give you a hug that could lift you off your feet.

Even if one were to forgo getting wet or were not in the mood to play in the waves, you could just perch yourself somewhere in the shore and let the wind rip through your hair and let the voice of the sea speak to you. As author Kate Chopin once said, ‘The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace’. One could sit and enjoy one of the biggest screens of creation, all spread out, just for them and all without a cost! You watch the distant ships charting their course on unknown land and see a couple of fishermen ready their boats to set sail folding in their nets to catch their fare. In the meanwhile, the canvas of the sky change hues of glorious shades of blue mixed with red and orange which shimmer across the surface of the water with the Sun playing peekaboo between the clouds. Often in those quiet times, when I’ve enjoyed the show, like it’s been put up solely for me, I’ve felt most at peace with myself.

The sea often makes us feel really insignificant by its vastness and allows us to garner a fresh perspective on things which rue our life. Like writer Sarah Kay said, “there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away." It kind of gives the forbearance to give another chance to solve whatever it was that was clouding our day. If you were to give it some more time, you’d find the rhythm in the waves and they could help you set a tune alight in your heart as well.  

And as I’ve often gathered up my things and bid adieu to the sea, I’ve felt the sound of waves, the smell of the sea and the whistle of the wind, call out to me, asking me to not be a stranger and come visit again. The memories of a visit to the beach linger longer in our minds than the footprints do in the sand. 

Random pickings of a sleepy mind

You’ve been thinking of the perfect way to start a conversation or have been struggling with a quick comeback to something your friend or colleague had said or it’s just that you wanted a perfect opening to the next blog or article you wanted to write and all this eluded your grasp at that particular time no matter how hard you tried.

Now let’s fast forward to the time when you hit your head on the pillow and are ready to call it a night. Just when you’ve closed your eyes and have gone through what’s happened during the day and are almost drifting off to sleepy land the unimaginable happens. The answer to your conversation starter, smart comeback or perfect opening creep up on you.

And without a thought as to why it’s coming in now you go on to place your mind at that thoughts disposal, weaving lines and words into beautiful order, so much so that it kind of feels like it is running into a beautiful commentary. You always wonder at some point as to how articulate you are and feel proud that you could produce a work like this, forgetting that it is just a work of fiction, and in more ways than one.

There have been days, or rather nights to be precise, where I have had deep arguments and conversations with people who I’ve wanted to give a piece of my mind or written a beautiful piece in those minutes when I was just slipping into dream land and then to be lost forever when I wake up the next day.

I sometimes wonder if these would resurface again and if the logic and points I had raised in my thoughts during those moments would come to my aide if I were in a similar situation some time later. But I’m never sure how that works or if once the thoughts are formed they are lost somewhere in the echelons of the mind buried within other data never to see the light of day or pen again.

Talking of pens, I’ve often thought of keeping a pen and paper at my bedside table to help jot down the points, but hey I’m too lazy to wake and put those thoughts to paper. Who knows when I wake up mayhap I lose the plot all together. So I’ll just stick on to enjoy that moment when I can and not sweat too much about how I could use it for my benefit. 

Words of wonder...

I’ve always been fascinated by words and the picture they are able to create when strung in a particular order. Rudyard Kipling referred to words as the most powerful drug used by mankind. Ever since I was able to string together the alphabets to form words and then to join them and form sentences, it was always a thrill to unravel a new world or see the same one through the eyes of different authors. I’ve travelled the length and breadth of some places thanks to the picture the words have painted.

Tom Sawyer always brings to my mind a picture of a small naughty boy with a pail of whitewash in hand and paintbrush in the other, slowly moving on to how he eventually makes dimes out of his task. I’ve almost felt the breath of the Swiss Alps and tasted goat’s milk in Heidi through the description of the author. I’ve sailed the whale ship Pequod along with Ishmael and almost felt the terror Captain Ahab put us through to get his personal vendetta against Moby Dick. Like Matilda I went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad, went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and travelled India with Rudyard Kipling. I travelled all over the world while sitting in my little room at home. There are many a times I’ve felt suspense and thrill and not put the book down till I got to the end of a Famous Five, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys or The Secret Seven as if I was almost helping them solve the mystery myself.

I’m sure there are a lot of books which have been just narratives of things as they were or mere explanations of things as they should be. However, nothing brought alive the war and its consequences as ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ by Anne Frank or ‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zusak or ‘Désirée’ by Annemarie Selinko. The characters tell a story and the authors have weaved the tales around how the war was affecting the lives of people like no other history book I had read when in school. Although I guess, it might have been a task getting a bunch of kids to read heavy literature when reading curriculum books itself was considered a chore!

There are many a evenings when with my head stacked with pillows and feet tucked in my favourite blanket, with my mother’s incessant nagging in the background that I would one day spoil my eyes, I’ve peeked along with Alice in Wonderland or slept off to the tales of talking animals by Enid Blyton or relived the life of Black Beauty. I’ve dreamt of mythical beings and the magic of the land of Narnia as C. S. Lewis painted it for us and have joined in the movement with the inmates of George Orwell’s The Animal Farm. These stories left open doors to multiple interpretations with my mind being the only barrier to how far I could stretch the boundaries.

Food was often the victim of abandonment and so were academics and friends as I was engrossed in the lives that I was unveiling through the author’s eyes. Times have changed. Different genres of literature have held me captivated at various stages of interest. The more I read, the more I want to continue reading and explore. I could be lost in the beauty of a sunset as seen on a beach or be enthralled by the beauty of nature as seen from the top of a mountain. However, even when my eyes are not reading the printed letters, I find myself writing notes in my mind to go along with the picture to capture the essence of the moment. That is what adds flavour to the memory when I pick it out of my memoirs someday to reminisce. Like Helen Keller said, Literature is my Utopia!

Forever young

The secret recipe for being young is still at large. I’m sure cosmetologists and estheticians across the world are trying to figure out a magic formula that would help the human race be young for long. While the brilliant minds are still at work to develop this magic drug, I had a stimulating experience which kind of opened up my mind to looking beyond the physical and focus on being young at heart.

I was back in a college campus when an inter-collegiate event was on, giving company to my spouse or just wanting to see him work in his environment. The atmosphere in this campus was filled with energy, enthusiasm, high levels of emotions with each emotion being felt so strongly like there is no tomorrow. Yet, these students, once they graduate out of the college portals and embroil themselves with work, create their own definitions of success, get too indulged in their lives goals that they don’t realize when slowly life’s experiences turn them old and jaded. That is when they reminiscence of old days and the way things were back when they were in college.

Professors, now they are another cup of tea! And these are the genre of people who continue to stay young. I tell you why. Most of them stay in the campus, watch batches of students come in and watch them move on as young adults ready to take on the world. Since the energy levels in a campus is contagious, it means that some of all the mad energy is going to get passed on to them too. That’s not just it, they need to stay a step ahead of their students and so they learn some of their little tricks too!

Professors at most times need to converse, advice, cajole the students at certain tasks and the best results are got when they do that in the same wavelength as the student and not just as a higher up. This is an electrifying combination. The mind is constantly stimulated to process new information, along with the continuous young energy and I guess that’s the reason, most of the popular Professors are still young, atleast at heart. It’s another matter that most of the student antics might have given most of them premature greying or even go bald! Talk to any ‘popular’ professors and you’ll get what I’m trying to talk about.  

We were just discussing on the pros and cons of being a lecturer on our way back home. Would teaching of any kind have the same effect? We were not able to conclude emphatically, but both of us did feel that this strange bond between students and professors might be limited to education above a certain level. Does this make me want to take up teaching? Heck no! But I think I’ll be back for a dip from that fountain some time!