Swim Your Way To Life!

Caught in the whirlwind of frantic mesmerism, I decided to jump. Into the deep waters from the cliff I had happily climbed - not knowing how to swim. With music running in the back of my mind, its loudness hurting my brain, I tried to speak to myself. But truly unable to hear all the gibberish my lips were mumbling, I closed my eyes and launched myself off the cliff, expecting gravity to do the trick and get me down. Sink me deep into the blues of the ocean so I could never get up from the vastness of the waters into which I would lay engulfed and never see survival again.

But I did. Though my right leg dashed badly against one of those rock forms projecting outside, I survived. Though I lost a lot of blood because of the deep cut that ensued, I lived. Yes, again. I wonder how I managed to come up from within the seas and reach the surface of the waters - the warmth of the afternoon sun caressing the parts of my body seen floating outside. Truly I have no clue. Some things in life cannot be reasoned at all. The occurrence of such incidents solidly reaffirms the belief humankind has in God. Again, and again!

I waved my hands, moved my legs and swam for the first time. I did it well, because logic whispered into my ears that I should follow the current that was hitting the shores. Somehow I reached. It was tiring, took a little longer than the usual. Obviously, I am no Michael Phelps. But when I touched the sand in the shore, I kissed it. Kissed it again. And kept kissing it as long as I could, allowing my face to be thoroughly splashed in the slimy mud and dirt. After a while, the froth from the next strong wave that hit the shore cleansed me whole again. I got up, limped my way back to where I truly belong, to the simmering little things that add meaning and beauty to life, to the voice of the little children, to the burdensome tears of the shelter-less, the poor and the old that weep for comfort and relief, to the cold blanket-less nights and the nomadic run under the scorching sun, to the smiles that are genuine, to the butterflies that swarm around you making music as they flap their light feathers against the wind, to the meauing cats that lovingly scratch themselves against your legs and the barking stray dogs that you befriended with biscuits, to the hunger of the stomach that calms the hunger of the soul, and to my mum, dad and brother in the end.

Speaking For The Disabled!

                               

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around!"

- Leo F Buscaglia

After much pressure, one improperly framed question on disability was hurriedly included into the 2001 census - in the very last moment. It was a given that a considerable chunk of the enumerators did not even ask the question in the households they conducted the survey. According to the data released then, there were 2.19 crore disabled people in the nation - which accounted to 2.1% of the population. However the 11th Five Year Plan admitted that the figure could be anywhere between 5 to 6% of the total population. That certainly is worrisome statistic!

Undoubtedly, it is great news that the nation takes strides in development, but we need to ensure that - in the process - we do not end up creating more and more barriers to the disabled people. Because they comprise one of the poorest and most vulnerable sections of the society. It is no understatement if we mentioned that they are the invisible minority in the policy realm. Reason, budget analysis from 2008-12 reveals that we have spent only 0.09% of our GDP on disability.

We cannot really disregard the strong association between poverty and disability. Various studies confirm the high incidence of preventable diseases causing impairments. There are fundamental issues in relation to how differences are understood and responded to in Indian context, but one cannot overlook the contemporary hard realities of Indian poverty. So it imperatively falls on the State to up the ante in providing proper health care to the poor. It is only when we truly begin to develop deeper appreciation of the context and make efforts to understand individual and collective stories of the pain the disabled people go through everyday, we can open up the moral and political space for effective reforms - rather than putting in place fragmented solutions.

We need a new progressive paradigm to address the matter without any room for neglect or marginalization. We need to work out a framework that would - go beyond charity and acknowledge that disability is a cross-cutting human rights issue. We need a solid setup that screams out loudly for inclusivity which could only be achieved by careful re-structuring of culture, policy and practice - so individual differences are no more seen as problems to be fixed, but as opportunities to enrich harmony and embrace change. The era of being able to muster only a minuscule space in the minds of the policymakers concerning real pressing issues should come to an end - only then would the nation put its money where its mouth is! If we do not seize the opportunity to create an equal and just society, it would be a huge failure for a country that is on its way to become a global leader.

In Search Of The Moon!

The night goes in search of its moon; the moon searches for its sun; the sun doesn't have anything to go searching for, so it looks within to see if it could find those hurting black holes. No respite, so it hangs in there burning bright and brighter - waving its coronal tentacles, trying its best to not derange its demeanor. Quests are necessary, they give meaning to lives lived without taste and vigor. But dear, in this dark rainy night - tell me what has your troubled heart gone in search of?

Why do you always want to build your nest right above those deadly flames of fire? Why is that your thoughts run amok flowing like a flooded river? Just tap your heart gently and ask for yourself! Do you still not know that the reasons you keep feeding your mind to back all your actions are not really the reasons! Oh poor you, I see the precious side of it - how you have the heart of a small child! If only I could understand the search in your eyes, and the mysterious trail of your nomadic mind, I would gladly shoulder you all my life through the thick and thin, the bad and worse. For you are my lifeline, the taproot that holds my life's balance and the dew that could sorcerize every gaping portal of my inner being and then completely burn me down!

But this - I cannot bear! Why do you have to shed tears in the night - when no one notices? Why would you allow grief to grip your soul? Why don't you just rest your head on my lap? Am I not also your mother? Come, let me tell you a sweet story, sing you a lullaby and put you to sleep - so I could find peace - seeing how your eyelids give in to night's gravity and droop, and how your chest gently heaves as you enter your dreams - and thereafter find my sleep too.

What Really Is Love?

                                   

Love is fun and it is amazing, like little children splashing water on each other. It is deep in its meaning, that it confounds even the wisest of scholars. It is like the tastiest cheese filling inside a hot cheese-burst pizza that drips down your lips at every single bite. Love is solid, sometimes moves like fluid, but most of the time - it is found in the gaseous state, formless. It smells like flowers not found on earth, flies like how the albatross takes flight, and is as sour, tangy and spicy as the pani puri water that you gulp from the street-side shops down the road.

Love is not two people having consensual sex - it is more than the pleasures of the bed. Love is not sending text messages late in the night, because love cannot be contained in words and is not just of the night. Love is not taking the ones you like to the places they like - it is exotically home-bound. Love is not the deep french kisses - for love is the most tastiest, before the tongues could meet. In simple words, Love Is Action Defying Convention.

Love is noticing a strange kid in the railway station bitterly crying not knowing what to do - because she lost her parents in the crowd, and you don't want to leave the child all alone - so you stay with her till her parents show up and you finally see some smile on her lovely small face at the very sight of her mom who comes running. Love is running to help the collapsing old man, carefully placing him inside the stopped autorickshaw and going along with him to drop him at his residence - located in a place you have never been to before. Love is having a gentle evening conversation with the transgenders standing next to their rented brothel and taking them to the nearest A2B restaurant so they could eat good food - while the onlookers throw suspiciously disgusting looks on you.

Love is the real scars you carry because the stitches have left a long mark that would not fade till you die. Love is washing the clothes of all the thirty kids in the children's home everyday - because the caretaker woman who is paid to do the daily chores is pregnant with a fully bulged belly. Love is flirting with danger, not for the fun of it, but to prove a point to the ugly thugs that the poor cannot easily be treated that way when you are around. Love is an epileptic donating blood thrice in a month. Love is giving away everything, even if it would mean - to the last drop of your blood. Love is Precious. Divine. Magnanimous. Always Resides In The Hiding. The Most Beautiful. Modest. Sacrificial. All-bearing.

And very rightly - God is Love!

Let The Fever Go!

When he came back home from work, she was sleeping - shivering with fever - fully and tightly covered inside that warm quilt. He did not want to disturb her, carefully kept the parcel food he had brought along on the table next to the bed, wanted to go out and sleep in the hall. But something brought him back in. He wanted to check how bad her fever was - wake her up slowly, help her complete the food, then the medicine and put her back to sleep to the usual strumming of his guitar. But she woke up - all too suddenly - right when his hand touched her forehead.

He looked at her, asked her if she was okay. She smiled, told him that her fever would never go - if he couldn't help. He did not understand what she meant - at first. Told her, he was no doctor. Mandoos mandoos, she playfully teased him. He still could not get what she was trying to imply. Okay, have to admit - he was feigning ignorance now. Totally unable to hide it for long, he blushed the romance out. She triggered the wild riot right away, made the first move with the most unexpected kiss in the most likeable peck spot and the music followed.

The fever left her instantly leaving her to fall sick again - but now in intense love. With that severely naughty smile, he was running after her, chasing - wanting to pull out her saree fold that had carefully been tucked right below her round and beautiful belly button. She hit him hard. Aiii - with a shout, he left a solid pinch with the reddening mark on her wheatish waist skin. He held both her hands firmly, pinned her to the wall whispering sweet-nothings into her ears, then a few sugar bites on the lobes - I am definitely going to kill you, kill you with my kisses, he threatened her with much love. What happened next is completely left to your imagination!

He had always been that innocently upright person - keeping away from all such things calling them - cha cha wrongs and chi chi wrongs, but now the more he breathed in the fragrance from her jasmine-flower clad long hair locks - he was stoned, helpless, left only to more willingly do all those things he once considered chi wrong - in the most sweetly mischievous way possible.  Whenever they sat in the fields surrounded by the green of the mountain, and as the tunes from the flute and the tabla fogged the scene leaving refreshing dew-drops on the love-stricken surfaces of their minds, they just stared into each other's eyes in silence. The rest followed like magic - swelling her belly with their babies, one after the other. Lying on her comforting lap, he wrote her a poem that ended with a question - 'After thoroughly ravaging my heart, why do you even vaguely think that the gold, the wealth, much money, societal norms and other things would take me away from you; or that those vain things would pacify the ticklish unrest that gets sweeter by the day and grows intense by the night?' In reply, all that she knew to do was to remind him that they were already married and kiss him instantly - a little harder than usual. Then, they both laughed their heart out lying down there - gazing at the stars and counting each other's moles as the night once again covered them in its loverly warmth.

Like The Touch Of Warm Sunrays

Your soul speaks to you in its loudest voice when you are at the most quietest place of your life. Something takes you away to the worlds you have never been to, takes you out of all the precepts of societal clauses, makes you numb to all the decrees laid out by the men of the old. You close your eyes and all you could see is the ocean, the Sun taking its ritual dip in the evening only to rise up again the following morning - with its more vibrant rays. You open your eyes when you hear the owls howling, the mind in slight trouble - because they had taught you that the sound of an owl is sign for bad omen - but all you see now is the moon up above shining in its loveliness - moving in all directions you try to step away and run, and then there are stars twinkling everywhere lighting up the cloudless dark sky. It is time you whispered into your own ears
that every little thing your eyes could see has been made beautiful and perfect in its own
sweet way. There is no need to burden your heart with all the worries of the world. Because in its
time - like how the buds open up to become beautiful flowers, like how the touch of
warm sunrays sustains life on earth, it would all become fine, straight and alright - because
not one prayer prayed for the goodness of people goes in vain!

                                                                       The sound of the dice rolling on the table and the coins moving up and down the ladder board - sometimes bitten by the painted snakes, sometimes escaping them. You might wonder and ask yourself why not redraw the board and recreate the whole game without the snakes? But then, the thrill extinguishes with the disappearance of the snakes - the venom in its fangs actually adds meaning to the game played within the board. A close friend of mine always says that in life there are no accidents but only incidents. It might take some time to grasp the truth behind this saying, but as the ripples fade and the waters reach its stillness, and when you see your own reflection emanating from the surface of the lake, you will then understand - noticing to your  amusement that your countenance has actually grown in its august brightness. They say - if what comes out of a furnace doesn't shine, it isn't probably gold. It is verily verily true that
ordeals - when they end - always bring out the best in a person!

The beats of your heart!

I'm one of those lone wanderers who loves to go on long rides alone - just me and the bike. The moment I get up from my bed every morning, I mumble a short prayer - after which I say a brisk hi and good morning to my soul. I respect my private space. I like to sit in the quiet to spend some time with myself even in the middle of the busiest day. Last month, I covered two thousand kilometers in three days. Of course - on my bike, and yes - alone. On the second day, I was in Kerala - on top of one of the tallest hills of the western ghats. All through the journey, I was running and re-running scenes from my life because I had so many questions I needed answers for and I was on the verge of making one of my life's toughest decisions. But when I saw those clouds and all the jaw-dropping green around, I quit thinking. Yes, I went blank. The chilly mist was shaking my bone and marrow, and it was hurting me - but it felt strangely good. Something brought all those legions of butterflies in multiple colors towards me and the creaking sounds of the wild crickets were growing higher in their pitch. I smiled my best smile of the year standing there surrounded by that divine calmness of the morning. 

Those sweet whispers from my soul resonated in my ears adding beauty to the moment. It solved all the puzzles just like magic. I was immensely happy. The decision was made. I spoke it out - to the butterflies first that were swarming around me. Then, to the air that was refreshing the morning. And, to all the vegetation and the lovely green my eyes could see. I repeated whatever my heart wanted me to say. I said it aloud. Louder still. Then the Sun started coming up and its rays filled the morning sky. And I kick-started my bike, continued with the journey more happily. 

To be truly happy, you should follow your heart. You need to trust and blindly obey your heart. The whole world might toss you with truckloads of opinions both ways, but it falls on you to carefully train your mind so you listen only to the beats of your heart. Before you do any thing - you have to believe from deep within that you can do it, it should occur to you naturally straight from the deepest portals of your heart - or just quit doing it. See how the little birds learn to fly! When the time comes, they just jump out of their nests closing their eyes, flapping their wings - slowly and quickly and then slowly again till they find their right rhythm, and in the end - there they go flying and singing to the most beautiful places!

It might sound extremely illogical but it is absolutely true that your heart never lies. You could try a thousand tricks to misguide your heart to believe a lie to be the truth, but it wouldn't oblige. It wouldn't allow you to wrong anyone either, because compassion flows out of its all four chambers. How I wish the viles of the mind are completely doused as the human race continues to progress and evolve through history! We don't need great inventions anymore - all the advancements we have seen in all these years are enough! What we sincerely need is for all men and women to carry the fervor of the soul's warmth in their lives every breathing moment! When that day arrives, we would - in truth - see that utopian world where kindness, laughter, fun and love would be found in bubbling abundance.