A few words of hope

Today, where hope is dying, lives are crying and we are all trying - to make peace or war, for better or for worse, we need words of wisdom to come our way now and then. Here are a few words of Mother Teresa I found on the Internet. In this distraught world where we are all fighting little battles of our own, I hope these words help.

"People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. 
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. 
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. 
Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. 
Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. 
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. 
Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. 
Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."

I dig the ones I have italicized.
Always Hopeful.

Merry Xmas!!

Christmas is round the corner, someone said last week.
I wonder why they say that - round the corner. Its funny, come to think of it, its more like saying - round the numbers like make 38.45 = 39. But ah well! Christmas is here now and its time for merry merry merry!

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Fantasy

You come, you go.
My heart says 'No more, No more'
Play with a toy, not me
Shatter not my world built on a fantasy

When it rains, it pours

That is something I realised today. There is nothing you can do to control the weather. You might want the sun to shine, but the rain will pour when it wants to. You cannot ever do enough to make sure there is cheer all around, all the time.

So from now on, I'm going to stop trying.. Because no matter how hard I try, what has to happen will. Stop picking up the pieces, because its never going to be whole again. Just look forward to what will happen in the future. Few things, few people, few experiences want to stay behind, or move forward to a place where you don't belong. Acceptance is the hardest thing to conquer, and that is something we are all trying to fight against.

WHY

It is an all encompassing question. Answers to which I do not have, and maybe someday you can give me an answer to that. For different bits of the question, there are different answers, but I wonder if there will ever be an all encompassing answer for the question.

Why am I asking this question you cannot fully comprehend, I dont know. That is my only answer now. There is void in our life. You, me, my neighbour, your cousin. There is a void that only completes after you have found answers to a few questions.

A few questions I found asking myself
- Why do we always chase what we cannot get our hands on, the elusive.
- Why do we exist, a question a few friends of mine have been asking themselves as well.
- Why do we keep questioning things around us - it gives us a little clarity, helps us know more, know better, but what do we do with the knowledge, apart from apply it in our day to day lives and pass it on; be it to our friends, loved ones or to our future generation.

What do we do with the knowledge we gain in our lifetime. Or is it just there, as a treasure house of experiences, to cherish memories; memories that stir us, make us smile or make us start a war.
The question can vary. Its a why for me, it could be a 'how' for you and 'when' for some.

Right now I am worrying about how and when too, but largely it revolves around WHY.
What are the questions that bother you?

Something to believe in

Take me to a world ideal,

Where one feels no pain and the joy is real,

Don’t tell me the truth if it hurts,

Try and tell me no lie either.

If you believe, give me that something,

And for that, ill give you my everything.

Forward March

Life is never unfair or just
It’s never all or just nothing
A day sees more than just rain or shine
It’s a taste sweeter than wine


Life is never just black or white
There are shades of colour in between
There are pictures we paint in our mind
Some silhouettes and some never to be seen


Life is never a one way street
There is always traffic in this scene
But when life wants to reach out to you
It will seep in through the thick


So when you think that dawn will never break
Look at the far spread horizon again
the ebb will never stop its forward march
Whatever it is, this life, it never ceases to surprise

A little more

A potted plant shattered into pieces. The milk boiled over. And it began to pour.


Little do we realize we are not the only ones who feel things. I am not interested in scientific arguments. You can keep them to yourselves, thank you very much. 


Let us open our eyes. I have stated what has happened to a few “non-living” things around me, so to speak. A potted plant, nourishing a pretty money plant for 2 years, gets hit by a tiny little ball and shatters to pieces. Think about it, doesn't really affect you, but it too was created by someone, the pot I mean. God created you and me, and someone out here, in the real world made that tiny little pot, one of the many millions that may be in your house, garden or kitchen. So when one pot breaks, does it not affect the others. Probably not, but think about it, they are all connected. We are all connected. It's made of soil, like we are. So why have we become self absorbed that we cannot feel the pain of what's happening around us anymore. I am not talking about people. But are we really that divine a creature that we shouldn't feel pain at the loss of something else. 


The milk boiled over. I didn't turn it off when I should have. But I could have, if I had paid closer attention, if I had given it the time that it deserved. But no, I let it boil and boil and boil, till it could take no more. This is an analogy I draw to us. We take and we take and we take until we can take no more. Take pain or pleasure or joy, there is a limit to everything. We can control the heat, but we cant really do much when its gone beyond a limit. I feel the same thing applies to everything around us. The earth even. The very planet we thrive on, is taking everything we throw at it. Our whims and fancies. For how much longer I wonder. When are the skies going to fall down upon us. When is it going to break into tears? Moderation isn't the answer to everything. But it is for a lot of things going wrong in this world. There might be other solutions I haven't figured out yet. There might be better ways of treating people around us, but for now we know everyone welcomes a smile, but it doesn't mend a broken heart.


My pot broke.
The milk boiled over.
And the skies cried.


Doesn't work wonders for many, but it does for me. I wonder what this does for you. 

Measuring Time

I am listening to a French song. It’s beautiful. Hold on – I don’t know French! But I do understand that she is very heartbroken, her lover probably left her for someone else. I can feel her pain, her suffering. Funny how a heart can feel the pain and suffering of another person. Not with the same intensity, but feel it nevertheless.

The sadness on her face, the clenching of her fist, I cant see, but I can surely imagine it. And what is sparking this, the depth of her voice, the modulation of it all, the gloom it fills the air around me with. All with the sound of music created constantly around us. Sound – similar to the wind, a powerful but invisible force, if I may say so. We can measure it, measure the rise and fall of it, but never see it, never hold it, yet our soul is touched. There are lot of things we may never see but we can measure, but feelings – I can’t find another thing in the world like feelings. We may name them different things – sad, happy, love, hurt, anger… but we can’t measure it. A mother holding her baby is happy, a husband beating a wife is angry, and then there are people in love. Love happens to us all the time. And everytime we fall in love we think – This is it! But then one day it slips out of our hands like the sand and we don’t feel anymore. We begin to wonder. We feel loss. We feel pain and then we turn to stone and carry on with life. Some of us smile, some are not as lucky. For them we have time. Again, time is something we can’t experience with our senses, but we have devised a way of measuring it. A way of feeling time. Ironic isn’t it?

A new love story begins

My recent love affair is one that opened up my horizon to dreams and possibilities that I didn’t know existed before. Fascinated, I have been trying to pursue it, without a worry about how friends, society or the world would react. I was being labeled as a person who jumped at anything she found attractive, anything that could satisfy her soul.


I envied anyone who had a similar affair, or better, fell in love with words as I did. It is better than falling in love with the winds atop the Empire State building or the gorges of Hogenakkal. Words – small, big, incomprehensible, can take over you and open up a world you will find impossible to get out of, if you let it take over you; and it took over me as I was working along side a few writers who believed that you have the power to change the world with words. They believed that “the pen is mightier than the sword”, and that every word had an influence. The words chosen can alter someone’s destiny, can spark an idea in another and bring about feelings that you didn’t know existed in your bloodstream.


So here I am, looking to embark on a journey that will open new pathways everyday of my life, where every unknown word becomes a friend I will pick up along the way. It’s not where it leads that matters, but the feeling of joy and beauty that will settle deep in my heart with every step I take.

I have so much to write, so much to tell, so little time cos I have already lost a lot of it. No. I am not dying, nor have I done anything mighty like save the world, nor did I bring home a homeless cat. My life is not what tales are made of, not yet anyway.

I had written down how my 1st internaltional holiday journey began on a small piece of paper, I realised I had written a whole page to describe a journey that lasted 3 hours. I realised its beautiful to have the window seat and watch how the horizon offers you a view of different coloured clouds at different altitudes and different timezones. I realised I have wasted a lot of time dozing off on journeys, any journey, for the last 23 years of my life. I realised I was nobodys different coloured cloud at different timezones. And last of all, I realised I need a plan in life.

What that plan is I have no clue as of yet, it changes the way the weather does, but no matter how tough it is, I need to get my bearings right soon. If I count the number of times I use "I" in any paragraph, I feel ashamed, so below is something I noticed on a rather small quick journey on a train.

With eyes full of adoration and a gaze full of love, a 11 year old took pride in accompanying his 5 year old brother on this particularly small train ride. He found a spot where one could sit, snug and comfortable next to an old man and let his brother take that seat. When the seat next to the young ones got vacant, the older brother took his seat and pulled out his playstation and passed it on to the little one. 5 year old and what a champ! He took to it like a fish to water and his brother looked on, with pride.

I had to get off at the station, but I couldn't help smiling at what I saw. It reminded me of my brother, who always stood up for me and always always gave me his full support. Stern when he needed to be, loving at all other times. And then when I hear of all the stories - full of pain and suffering, where one sibling either abandons the other, or moves away when it comes to "division of property", it breaks my heart. Were they never close? Could they just forget all the moments of love and joy and happiness, innocent times they shared for something as trivial as money?? Money does have a big role to play, but can you fight with someone who came into this world using the same passage as you did, and will leave the world the way you would. All that connects us, is love, and the one thing you don't want to die doing is regretting. Regretting that you didn't help, regretting why you walked away, regretting why you let your ego get in your way.

Families go way beyond, way deeper. Which is why I fail to understand why certain governments and private companies alike will not let you assign someone else be your beneficiary. Its almost always - Parents / Spouse / Child. I remember I wanted to put down my brothers name in one of these columns, but they said - Sorry, We dont take that risk. Many brothers have been known to murder for these reasons.All I want to end this with is, it is never too late to make amends. Just look back, and as long as the person is not a murderer or a rapist, think things through.