*IPL Weds Branding*

And you all (crazy cricket fanatics, businessmen/women, Dada/Nana followers, wives/girlfriends of all non followers of soccer, sponsors and whoever is left) are cordially invited to the auspicious wedding that’s taking place at various stadiums in India, and costlier the gift you get(ticket), better will be the service from our side! Namaste.

I’m not an avid fan of cricket or even IPL or any other Indian big fat wedding. Nevertheless, I happen to observe few aspects of IPL just like various movie trailers that I get to see, seated along my excited-for-new movies-siblings.

On every ‘IPL day’ at dinner, my mother ridicules some random poor guy because he is rich and awkward and gives insights about IPL on TV, and some female who would have put up too much of make-up or dressed in revealing attire. My dad condemns every catch that is dropped, gets exalted every time the ball kisses or flies across the boundary and opposes every team that my mother supports. I instead focus on the teams’ t-shirts and caps, bats and grounds, umpires’ uniforms, giant screens. If you take a ‘who’s in whose team?’ quiz, I’ll shamelessly terribly fail. But ‘the bigwigs-sponsors’ of various teams have definitely spammed in my ‘memory-the mailbox’.


So whether it’s 'LUX COZI 'written on uniforms of  ‘Kings XI’ and ‘DC’ or ‘Manyavar ethnic wears’ partnership with ‘KKR’, or even small firm like ‘Burn Fitness Port’ which has invested in 'DC', they all have converted these cricket men into playing talking living hoardings and cartoons ( in various comic features like ‘Rock 'n' Royals' and ‘Electric Chargers', The 'Delhi Daredevils' in Diamond Comics' special series where they join the latter's characters 'Chacha Chadhury' and 'Sabu') and models ('KKR' team dressed elegantly, posing in 'Manyavar ethnic wear', and they look so cute, some look hot..!! see the link below, no wonder I know who all are in this team!!).



 The above video with ethnic wears reminded me of big fat weddings that most of the people like to be invited to. We love to celebrate know, whether it's a child-birth ceremony, marriages, or cricket and its various forms. WE push the boat out.
Not that I’m against it, not at all, but it is more like the Indian wedding where everything (designer clothes, people wanting to be captured by camera, shiny 'firangi' hopping cheerleaders, the ‘pandol’-stadium setup) , except the couple, is noticed. Obviously little happenings like ‘SRK-MCA fight’, etc are bound to take place in the big wedding (controversies are main features of such grand occasions)!!

Anyhow, the couple is going to make a good profit out of the whole wedding and we, the invitees, the audience, the viewers will get entertained somehow( I’m going to have spicy ‘chhole-bhature’ while checking out some cute guy wrapped in the ‘wedding’ dress on TV). Also, I have a gut feeling that the strong couple will have a long-lasting marriage with pompous anniversaries to be enjoyed equally, later on.What a charm!!

With 302k followers on twitter, 1.1 million on facebook( thanks to various FB pages, youtube accounts devoted to these teams), others whether invited or not, whether a fan or not, this wedding is being attended by many.

So are you attending the wedding?

White UP White DOWN…

 So basically once again we got manipulated by ubiquitous commercials. But this time, it’s different!! We don’t want fairness creams (for females’ private parts).

I got to know about so called fairness cream after I read that there was a furor in Rajya Sabha (upper house in Indian Parliament) regarding it. According to them, the concerned commercial was debasing females. Well, the first thing I did after reading that article was signing in my you tube account( so that I could see the commercial even if it were X-rated). I had to see it as I wanted to know what it was that made it more attention-seeking and women debasing than various gang-rapes, eve-teasing, honour-killing of women, all of which never create such furor in Rajya Sabha, on print-media, digital media..

I saw it. I saw it once again and read the you-tube users’ comments on that commercial. And I started to figure out what exactly was wrong.

I was sure that one of the reasons for the uproar was that the product dealt with female private parts. Another reason was the story-line of the commercial, which according to me was confusing, like other commercials. It showed a husband/boyfriend ignoring his plastic doll-like-wife/girlfriend. The sad female is shown with the product, followed by a not-so-offensive-sketch of a female applying the product on the darkest area of the body. Meanwhile, the specifications were told which were mainly about keeping the concerned part dry, clean and also making the complexion lighter. And so in the end, the husband/boyfriend was happy. Yeae!!

And so, viewers focused on only one aspect of it and that was the fairness one, not the hygienic ones. Even the product’s name has got no word related to fairness. But still they took it as female-private-part-bleaching-cream.

Men thought that the next product might target their private parts’ skin. And so they felt offended in advance. Also they thought that the product was typecasting them as racists and narrow-minded.

They won’t say it openly, “ darling, if you don’t have 'it' fair,

                                             you may use the product there,

                                            at least you can have it considered

                                             I might even do it for a longer time, my dear.”,

                                         Ha! But that’s what many of them may say it loud and clear,   

                                             but only in their private minds’ corners……..

                                                                                     

Women professed that the concept of the product was senseless. They don’t have to show 'it' to impress/attract men. And because showing *it* is not involved in the process, unlike what was shown in the advertisement, they don’t really require the product.

Now let me ask all these thoughtful critiques that why such uproar is not created when almost all the advertisements for men deodorant show skimpily-clad-females going wild after males using the advertised deodorant. That’s not debasing women? And will they use their moody logic towards such advertisement? Because going by the advertisement, I should transform into a sexually hyperactive female running crazily after some random guy using ‘the’ deodorant; also I’ll smell the scent even if I were a mile away. But no, they won’t use their logic over here.

I’m not judging the product or its usage. If you don’t like or want it, don’t use it. Why does anyone have to get the product banned? Do we take care of those body parts only which are to be shown in near future? We all go to beauty parlor and saloons and use shampoos and soaps and other ‘beauty’ products. Do we use them to attract the opposite sex? I personally like to keep myself groomed (at least at basic level) even when I don’t have to step out of my house.There are already facial fairness creams and fairness ‘body’ lotions for females. 

There are advertisements that show using certain toothpaste (once again) attracting female mindlessly towards a random guy using the product. Now do we all use tooth-paste for that? May be some do. And this is where the manipulation comes in. Read the specifications and advantages of a product. If you think some of those might help you in some way, then use it.

There is definitely something wrong with the ‘fairness addiction’ that Asians have. I already spread my views regarding it on an earlier blog-post(You may like to read Copper Maiden ).

But guys, grow up (pun intended). And women, we all are lovely and intelligent, but we don’t really have to sniff sense at everything(pun intended)!

image source: http://free-extras.com/images/black_and_white_daisies-1551.htm

The Omitted

After a while as I was filling an application form today, I realized that I was missing the alphabet ‘e’ repeatedly. We all, I suppose, usually omit random alphabets while writing. That happens. What took my attention today was that I was omitting only ‘e’.

May be I was tired. Even though I skip every time, ‘e’ in the word haven’t, just because at some time during my teenager years, I had developed the habit of using SMS lingo, all the time. Still, it bothered me. Only if I could erase memory of this incident! Yes the movie, ‘Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind’ came to my mind, but other things, as usual, also followed..

I imagined a scenario with my family and me, sitting together, chatting, smiling, enjoying. And then suddenly, I vanishing, dissolving in the air, omitted from the scene. It would happen instantly.

I would evaporate in the frozen time.

And then my memories getting erased from family’s minds.

They would be confused later, seeing a cup of tea, my clothes lying on my seat. Their confused senses would sense something amiss. My belongings, photographs, voice recordings, cards, gifts, poems, writings that will catch them eventually will force them to think. They would try to establish my identity and their relationship with me, but it would go in vain.

Then, they would try to understand their habits related to me. My mom coming to my room in morning to switch off the night lamp, but finding no one in the room. My sister dialing my number not knowing whom to talk to. The sudden free time left in the life of those that otherwise was spent talking to me. The habits would frustrate them. But then they are ‘Habits’. With time, habit without purpose erodes away. It is transient in nature. And if the essence of the habit is not reminded, it is forgotten.  My vanishing into the infinite followed by a short phase of vanishing habits will be all. They would eventually then go on. They wouldn’t place the omitted in their lives.

I have had such friends in many phases of my life without whom I used to think life would cease to exist. Now I just remember their names and very few things related to those times spent with them. New people came in and took their places which obviously happened in a very gradual way. They have been like different curtains on windows of my life with different capabilities of filtering light. I got used to all of them till they vanished or were substituted.

What bothers me the most is the fact that we people render nothing worthy, because everything and everyone, times spent in joy and oblivion, enemies and loved ones, at some point of time under some reasonable situations and circumstances can be logically forgotten.

We take pride at something and next moment we delete it. It doesn’t really matter, even if it is restored to its original place from the recycle bin. It loses it’s worth.

 Once omitted, remains omitted forever, even if it is re-established strongly in darker shades.

It is a very strange fact that the ‘Omission’ leaves the darkest mark; darker than any shade of insertion. And yet we skip the ‘Omitted’.

Synthesize the pigments of sorrow, indifference and joy

And color the time with them, it doesn’t matter if you are color blind

as you spread the sheet of time around yourself

and dip the brush of your actions in tears, waterfalls and brine

make it beautiful with shades of success and romance

and then cherish it; I say, hold it high in the day light

and if you don’t like some part or shade of it

bring it and see it with a different aspect, under a different colored lamp

you will then feel the beauty again

and the sorrow will camouflage with joy surrounding

The whole process of painting goes on, on the same canvass

Your dimensions change with each painting

Then one day when your skin and hair would have changed their color

try to place that lovely shade you had once spotted on the canvass

which you had held high with the satisfaction of a monk

with a blissful smile of a first-time-in-life-proud child

You may not find it and the worst being, you may not miss it at all!!

For it would have been omitted from your mind

Like the dreams you ride between sunset and sunrise..

 Image source: http://freelanceweekly.com/2010/03/03/the-case-of-the-vanishing-client/

 

Pebbles

A simple logic that runs through my mind

A hard truth which is equally hard to grind

is that world that we are possessed by

is unfaithful to everybody who is alive..

And we still have faith in it despite

Our logic that doesn’t fit in the given attire

And I wonder what is it that’s mine

irrespective of all the knowledge and quagmire..

And I wonder how do I know who is mine

irrespective of this cycle of death and life..

A sinking feeling then makes me realize

the depth of simplicity that I have taken in hand so easily

A negative feeling, in me that balloons inside,

then feels the pressure of the positivity in the air outside..

But it keeps soaring high in the sky

And I wonder when the balloon would deflate into nothing…

The complexity has churned nothing out of my head

And to contemplate upon what they and I said

has lost its charm as it doesn’t seem to help!!

So what do I do? Others say that I should take some rest

and spare them from the torture of  the whips of the simple and the complex!

But I say someone would foresee, someone would understand

The need to mull over the seen and unseen, heard and unheard, fought and abandoned..

Well I suggest that this complexity is an exercise to understand the simple

And our logic and thoughts are nothing but ripples

that arise out of some disturbance, good or bad, in our lives..

So let’s just sit quietly at a river bank, under shade of a tree

And drink the beauty of those ripples appearing, swimming, and disappearing

caused by nothing but by pebbles of those moments…

image source: http://50lessonslearned.nichetraining.co.za/uncategorized/lesson-3-people-aren%E2%80%99t-going-to-act-the-way-you-want-them-to-act-2/

The Fugitive

A lonely street I see, in front of me

Full of people’s dreams floating in the air

It makes me wonder, “Where is my sleep?”

This night is passing away,

 And the dawn is near

I try to listen to the sound of tip toe

Somewhere I know I’ll find it if I follow

But it seems all I hear, is my panting breath

And even my heart beats have gone low

Where are you my slippery sleep?

What have you slipped into? Where did you go?

To my left and right, I toss and toss

My now straight legs I then again cross

In my mind I still wander here and there

This consciousness, now my mind cannot bear

Someone tell me where are my dreams, where?

Can’t you see my helplessness now bare…?

I’m on the verge of giving up now

The sun is rising  and  the sky has allowed

The birds to fly towards the horizon

And as I see the scene outside my window so mesmerizing

“Forget it..!!”, I say, springing out of my bed

Why should I mourn over my sleep which has fled…?

A rusty book I see, in front of me

Full of hazy words floating in there

It makes me wonder, “where is my sleep?..!!”

The book from my hands is slipping away

.........And my sleep is finally near……! 

image sources: http://cloudninetalks.blogspot.in/2012_01_01_archive.html

http://www.thesocialpenguinblog.com/2011/08/29/the-weird-world-of-the-blog-spam-comment/john-tennek-4x18-insomniac-ren-e9378116/

 

Stirring The Wonderful

At the behest of my own knowledge

I consider myself and you as one

But Oh Dear! Do I have to take any pledge

before I profess such statement?

Anyhow, I think I still craze

for those moments that passed by

without our permission they crossed

the territories of our then present..

Tell me, tell me please

Can we ever retrieve them?

And even though we compose new music now

You see I have my favorites that I want to rewind

And those templates of the past that once menaced

I wish I could play with them once again this time

And those street lights that behind us flashed once

the darkest phase of our lives had lit when

And that light music that played in our loud heart beats’ presence

Yes I remember that time that left such deep dent

I don’t want to get it repaired and cherish it instead!

Only if I could get into the memories in my head for real

I would sneak into that world and get it sealed

But tell me if you would accompany me in this endeavor

because without you every world is rendered

colorless whether real or fiction..

Will you sip the drink of magic

that I will create for us to enter our dreams

or are we expected to stay lethargic?

and just miss helplessly those moments that still gleam..

I also wish I could somehow get

new lyrics for the old times, the music that we once played

and fresh dialogues and gestures to recreate

some moments that we didn’t live to the fullest..

But why should I mull over the bygones

when distance has followed our decision

of staying away from each other?

In such case, how shall we ever

expect to do the justice to our past?

May be we should just move forward

with a bag of things we managed to escape which

otherwise would have left us in the endless stream of spent years

Eight pairs of 3D glasses, that parking lot and bus tickets

the expired Barista cards, the ring made instantly out of the grass

flower petals, a black cap, and defunct earphones,

the tissue paper on which we played the game of criss-cross

and other remnants of that glorious time

I carry them all with me stirring the wonderful in my mind

and with them I make this dim conduit of your absence a little bright..

Apathy?

                                                                                   

If there were ashes flying in the air

Would you be glad to see it?

And if snowflakes instead were there

Will from your eyes, emanate tears?

In mornings when your feet touch soft grass

Do they ever painfully sear?

And if you know somewhere a child is without meal

Will you still dare to waste a supper?

Or if an evil you confront in present

Will you welcome its footsteps into the future?

I know your answer is ‘no’

Because we are under our control and we know

The right, the wrong, the good , the bad

We can identify the comforts, the discomforts,

what makes us and people happy and sad

Then how with such ease, do we chose to suture

The mask made of ignorance towards suffering of others?

Look into your own eyes in the mirror

And try to evade the above question..

If you’re thinking I’m going to talk about compassion and kindness and mercy, then may be you are mistaken!!

What I actually want to highlight though is the complexity  of human mind (not anatomically). I wonder how could I enjoy a delicious meal while watching television, just five minutes after reading an article on the condition of slum dwellers in Mumbai. Obviously my mind was numbed by the joy my taste buds provided it with.

OK. Well I think that I am going to talk about compassion and ignorance. Continue reading. So let me throw some light on what I read about the condition of slum dwellers in Mumbai. Kids over there, at times, have to kill rats and feed on them. Other alternative may be collecting grass grown near a pool of stagnant water or some ponds (where we better-offs would chose to shut our noses and mouth). Lack of education and opportunities make working in nearby hotels as waiters, a dream job. They rattle junk materials in search of metals and to differentiate them. And so on. And I pledged that I would not waste any food thereafter. But I couldn’t keep my own promise; may be because I am not ‘Chulbul Pandey’ of our typical Bollywood movie ‘Dabangg’, whose famous dialogue goes like, “Ekbaar jo maine commitment kardi to phir main khud ki bhi nahi sunta.” ( “if I commit once , then I do not even listen to myself.”). Also I am no Mother Teresa and likes. So what can I do? And a prequel to this question is, “Do I need to do anything?”

I read all sort of bad articles, news on atrocities being committed in this world, in present, in history, and those that will take place in near future. I get moved, both emotionally and literally. I take a step ahead and forget. I may remember all the bad things that have happened in he past and get depressed but not once do I think of those underprivileged, I read about in the past, and then get depressed. I need to be keep myself abreast with such news to feel bad about them, or passionate about them. And I think most of the people reading or not reading this piece of article share the same story.

Well, as for now, I do the minimum I can do to help the underprivileged. I hope I raise myself to the platform where I will be competing in the field of philanthropy. For now, I need to compete in other fields to feed my stomach and my ambitions. The starvation for philanthropy is yet not felt by me. It's concealed and subjugated by the selfishness and greediness of my mind, just like those kids’ starvation is concealed by them, behind the veil of ignorance, helplessness, capitulation to their fate…

 Watch the video of this NGO 'Kartavya', also listed among 20 successful nonprofits started by students across the world

Image source: http://www.sonrays.org/2011_05_01_archive.html

The Temptation

“I chose a place and planned every yard of it

I held the sand in my hands and saw it transform every bit

Into reality from my dreams, a sand castle of my own

I engaged my soul with the sand as it did with the water of the sea

I was humming the tune of glory unaware of the catastrophic drone

I was planning my next daylight engulfed by the mouth of giant I didn’t foresee

I was seeking a wonderful life, waiting for the novice sapling to grow into tree

Little would I’ve known about the giant’s shadow that I was already standing under

Little did I know that my castle would collapse with the thud of the thunder..

                         Now, I stand amidst the silent sea, washed off my bones and skin

           I wonder what was the whole purpose of my life and my yore kith and kin

         I wonder what my life was, just a reel running in the theater for you, God?
 I was only expecting a comma in my life, when suddenly came the final full-stop.”

We are not satisfied with your services or products. At times we wish we could say the above line to the creator of us and this world. Can we replace our lives for a better/best replacements? We cannot and so our only aim (whether conscious or unconscious one) is to attain satisfaction. For some, it is attained through career goals’ accomplishment, for others through other ways. And in the process, we go through vicissitudes of our lives. We go through exhilarating moments at times and at other times we curse our fate!!

But seldom, do we actually remember these moments during our daily humdrum. We do not always walk with an umbrella of happy moments to safeguard us from tumultuous times or frequent seeming triteness of our lives. Nor do we constantly move under the cloud of bad memories. Good and bad times come and go. They are seasonal, right? But there are times when we go through some real tense taxing phases.

Few years back I went through surgeries. It was all supposed to be fine but I was among those rare cases where patients are susceptible to surgery failure. The memories of that time still haunt me. And I wished to erase those memories, but went in vain, as I realized post surgery complications can occur at any time during one’s lifespan and care has to be taken. Basically I’m rendered with a life long fear, which may or may not transform into reality.

But then, don’t we all live under fear. I googled about tsunami and other natural calamities that have taken place. With bated breath, my heart began to get more conspicuous.

An extract from Wikipedia on tsunamis goes like this: “A tsunami can arrive at a coastline in one of two ways. In the first form, a negative wave, a trough precedes the actual arrival of the wave itself. Here, the better recognized warning sign of an impending tsunami strike is a rapidly receding sea followed by a sudden onrushing body of water traveling inland at high speed.
The second form in which a tsunami arrives is the positive wave first. In this case, the warning signs are much more vague if any. The sea will usually start rising immediately, slowly at first without the receding phase, like an on-coming high tide. However, instead of stopping at tidal level, the sea will keep rising faster and faster until the crest of the tsunami passes and continues moving inland. The second form of tsunami waves are usually more dangerous, since they can arrive without easily identifiable warning, giving residents less time to prepare and outrun the tsunami”

Well after reading, I tried to visualize the complete scenario. 35 feet high waves engulfing thousands of lives. Videos of recent earthquake and consequent tsunami in Japan helped me form a better picture. And I wondered that, on that day, at that time, a mother might have held her baby for the first and the last time, a son would have graduated, lovers would have got married, and all the other moments when a person may attain the epitome of his/her life. Viewing all this I was shattered. Events in my life seemed like a mere seasonal rainfall against this tsunami. Or may be all highs and lows, that we face, are like those waves which recede, rise, recede…until they don’t recede and inundate everything.

So the conclusion is as usual that  "Life goes on till we are out of it. You and I will still go out and enjoy existing beaches. " As it’s rightly said that It has never been, and never will be easy work! But the road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination."
But then I also read that  "Life is a pain, princess.....anyone who says differently is selling something."
But my father sees it all within a different purview. He says, "We don’t eat to live, but live to eat!"

And I too have started believing in the same. That Life is a temptation.  
And that in the course of time, when we get tired and wish an end to everything, we get lured by the prospects, desires our future seems to hold and fulfill.

"The shiny gates of future then glisten                              

We hope, we move ahead, on feet, with blisters

 Life’s like a 'Pepsi' in front of a thirsty

In winters, it’s like a 'whiskey'

For a pedestrian, it’s a 'Mercedes'

And Our life always tempts us to lead

Blindly till we fall into the pit, unaware, unseen..

Any way, let the lives of 'those' rest in peace.."







image source: http://recreateyourlifetoday.blogspot.in/2011/07/temptation.html
                                http://www.picturesocial.com/photo/life-goes-on-3?xg_source=activity 

Copper Maiden

 A fair skinned girl arrived, in an unpompous fashion, at a bus stop. But still, it made some men and few aunties look obliquely or directly at her. I was a mere spectator waiting to become a passenger in a bus that was so late that it seemed to be coming straight from a tour around the moon. Anyway, not getting digressed like the ‘Lost Bus’, I’ll come back to the bus-stop scene. So, I then ran my bored imagination to analyze that ‘Fair Maiden’s face. I toned down her skin complexion in my mind, and I realized that she wouldn’t have been attractive otherwise. I then saw another pretty-faced female with a dusky complexion standing a little far from the ‘Fair Maiden’, who had attracted some stares but not as much as the ‘Fair-Maiden’. And I was wonder-struck.

 I then recalled how every time,  my parents shower go-gaga-like appreciation on fair skinned females. “Itni gori hai ki haath lagao toh maili ho jaogi. Itni sunder hai wo.”(“So fair she is that if touched, her skin will get dirty. So beautiful she is.”)

Now I may comply, not literally, with their first phrase-like-statement on the degree of her fairness, but not always on the second statement. My parents here actually represent a large strata of our society having such mindset regarding beauty. In India, there’s an inexplicable nexus between fairness and beauty. No wonder, ubiquitous skin-lightening beauty products like ‘Fair & Lovely’, ‘Ponds White’ and now even 'Fair & Handsome’ flourish in market. Their advertisements depict depressed, dark-complexioned women, who had been ignored by employers and men, suddenly finding new boyfriends and glamorous careers after the cream had lightened their skin. And many such racist advertisements which further promote color based racism. And this is how the desperation to get fair prevails in the bourgeois. In here we come up with anti-tanning lotions and creams, whereas in west, they proudly boast their holiday-tan, sun beach-tan, artificial tan….

My grand grand father was a domineering 'zamindaar' (landlord) with three wives and many sons. But he got my grand-father married to my grand-mom just because she had a fair complexion. She in fact hailed from the poorest of the families residing in his village.

Though many Bollywood actresses have successfully fostered dark-beauty relationship, the long-living marriage of fairness-beauty is yet to be divorced!!

Fair skin is a traditional standard of beauty in many parts of the world. Often, those of upper class in past ages were not exposed to sunlight, as they didn't have to work in fields, thus, fair skin was associate with wealth, and since the wealth set the standards for beauty, pale skin was in. Also, probably it’s about the basic human nature; wanting something which we do not have.
In India people are usually dark-skinned or even dusky and so they aspire to become fair, whereas in west where people are fair skinned, they go for tanning for some reason. May be to look less pale. Similarly females with wavy or curly hair aspire to have straight hair and get them artificially straightened and those with straight hair, at times get bored and get them curled up!! That’s why, perhaps even in relationships, people have come up with ‘opposites attract’ logic.

Sadly even I fall in the category of those females who complain of getting tanned under the sun.

Nevertheless, this doesn't stop me from looking outwards towards those who promote such attitude towards complexion. 

In matrimonial section, one can find many advertisements wanting a fair bride. In fact beauty is supposed to be only skin deep. But I guess it’s just a proverb. What makes those adds more ridiculous is the fairness-beauty-lovely relation!!

Now, another thought flashes across my restless mind. Though Taj Mahal is known for its architecture, I still wonder what if it were coal-black? Would the ‘Copper-Maiden’ still be proudly boasted of as one of the wonders of the world then? 

                                              How grateful I am to the man, his kith and kin

                                                    To his gods and goddesses, all fair-skinned

                                                How much I appreciate the flowers, the sky

                                                    All of it is colorful and not just white

                                                How feeble I would be without the dark in the night

                                                    Everything need not be only bright

                                                How graceful I look in this mirror

                                                    Then why is it just my complexion that is noticed by those eyes?

                                                I too can be an angel and fly high

                                       I’m a Copper Maiden and virtuous, all right!!

Image link: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/copper-maiden-gunter-erik-hortz.html

Coming Back to Life

 “Now you will ask, when did I die

      But let me tell you, let me first clarify

        I die many mornings and many nights

         And even my salvation was at times nigh

          But something pulls me back every time

           And through different tunnels of darkness and light

             I find myself coming back to life………………”

So what is it that pulls us towards life? What is it that pulls creation after every destruction? Why is it that humans surpass all sorts of disasters only to enter another ephemeral civilization?

I think the culprit here is hope. Hope of coming back onto the right track of life. If that is the case, then most of us spend all our lives off-tracks. And all of us know that. Then why should we hope and what should we hope for?

Nevertheless, we mortals plan and hope as if we were immortals. And may be we are in a way!!

Because I think we live hundreds of lives and try to realize thousands of dreams, all in one life!

There are magnets that pull us to this preconceived notion of living.

We return to our fixed templates of life in hope of experiencing things in a different range of spectrum. Many times we do experience them. At times we just fail to perceive them in right time. And in other times, we take the shelter of our favorite pass-times. Well mine is listening to music among other things, as it gives me different platforms to construct new buildings of emotions, of euphoria. And every time I listen to my kind of music, I face a conundrum that whether I’m coming back to life or receding away from it.

Pink Floyd is among my favorite bands. They are the Gods of music. Only if I could know where that celestial music and earthly lyrics emanated from.

Yesterday only, when I was completely disillusioned, disconnected, and dispassionate (that happens sometimes), to cut off further from the rest of my atmosphere, I put earphones and started listening to one of their songs- ‘Coming back to life’. And the magnetic pull began.

I then listened to  ‘Green is the color’, ‘Take it back’ and it went on till 3 am. And I realized that this is one of those intangible magnets that draw such irresistible pull that I was talking about. I was once again on a ride. I was ambitious and full of High Hopes and then again became Comfortably Numb. Only to swing back on the strings of ‘Wish you were here’.

"And I wanted to pen down all that I felt,

   but found myself Lost for Words, then..

    Still I haggled my heart to get a bargain

     for words that could reflect the emotion that I otherwise restrained

      to rescue my passion incarcerated

       which usually, on daily humdrum, is pivoted

         to make it dip in the waters of freedom

          and then glide freely across the skies of rhythm

           into the universe constructed by the hallowed Pink Floyd

            Shine on, always, you crazy diamond..."

(Image source: http://cartoonslane.blogspot.com/2010/06/coming-back-to-life-ii.html)

Also you may like to listen to the lovely song "coming back to life"..