Love, Life & Happiness

I will here not evaluate the veracity of claims and counter-claims by AAP and its opponents, which are as on day listed as Congress and BJP, both colossal forces, one driven by history, another by a promise of future. The election surveys are a different game altogether and true or not, do not honestly analyses the impact of a political force. AAP rose out of the desperation of the middle class, driven to the edge by blatant corruption and a response to it by the government of the day which grew even more blatant with each new expose. Nothing was left sacred and nothing was left untouched. The shame grew to engulf the highest citadels of power, which sat in the assumed security. That power corrupts, we knew as a nation and to an extent, we had given a realistic acceptance to corruption in governance. In that sense, I believe, we Indians bore a great resemblance to Irishman, as written about by GK Chesterton, has two eyes. By which he implied that with one eye “ an Irishman saw

A silence descends over us as we age. As we grow, we start classifying words as meaningless and purposeful. Those defined as meaningless, struggle hard to keep their dignity with feigned grace and feigned deafness as people call them names. Life breathes through those puerile words and they struggle hard to keep breathing.  This struggle between adult meaningfulness and childish happy play continues till the time those meaningless words of vigor, hope and sensitivity start dying, alphabet by alphabet. We then, devoid of the brightness of those lovely words, stand in the gray, darkness with angry winds of silence bellowing with feral fury. We are left with wise words which descend far and between and even they loose relevance in a while and stop visiting.  What you speak, what you write may not change the world, may not bring earth-shattering changes to your life. They do not exist to serve you. They are the butterflies on the sunny days to fill them with beauty and fireflies in th

Courtesy: Old Friends By Rupa Bhaty Her work is at  https://rupabhaty.see.me/ We grow up with our own ideas of the world and life. From a weak existence, which is sure of its own ideas, we grow into an existence of power when those ideas take wings. We trust in those ideas, talk about them and argue for them. We love them truly and dream about surrendering our selfish well being to propel those ideas. As the Sun would set in the backdrop of tea stalls, we would speak with the conviction of a sage who has found his truth. Life hits back. It throws at us a rule book framed out of the lowest common denominator, the law of average. Every word is countered by the already tamed society with a rare vengeance. We conform to the social mold. Each act of conformance is an act of violence against the sacred spirit which we are borne with, a stab on the Will to live. With each small surrender, a word dies, one after another and the next rain flushes away the dead, through the dark night

“ Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of dictionary ” Said Khalil Gibran. It is true not only about writing poetry but also about reading poetry.  Ms. Marta Moran Bishop’s –  A Poet’s Journey: Sunlight and Shadows  is amply blessed with all the three ingredients. I got this book some time back, and it stayed unread for quite some time. The times were cruel as I struggled to write in between whatever time I could get from my day job and mostly failed. The sad grayness hung over my days and a profound sense of despair wrapped around me. All failures bring with them inherent lonelinesreal and imagined. So did mine. Then one day on the drive back to Delhi from a work related travel, I opened this book. The mild Sun of a dying winter day suddenly smiled with such love that could only be attributed to the magical poetry of Marta. This is a thin 68-page collection of Marta’s Poetry. I had earlier read Ayn Rand-ish I n Between Times , a work of fiction

Himalaya looked at her daughter. She was almost seventeen, right around the age to be married. The pink face, so endearing looked up. Her eyes rose from the Basil plant that she was watering. Himalaya, the affectionate father, could not stop comparing her with the little figure which had looked at her the first time he had taken her in the arms. The emotions which flooded his heart at that moment had not aged a day since then.  "A man's vagrant existence is resolved only through fatherhood. Everything else is merely a search for that ever-elusive happiness which is said to be the purpose of a man's existence. Fatherhood, when it touches a man of lowest existence, brings a sense of nobility into him. It offers him a near-god divinity by giving him an opportunity to not only protect, but nourish another human existence." Himalaya thought affectionately and sighed.  He felt a sudden sense of protectiveness towards Shailputri (The daughter of the mountains), w