HOW TO PRIORITIZE?

 In today's fast-paced world, the phrase ‘to prioritize’ has gained a currency.

We say that it is required to keep up with all sectors of our lives to be dealt with. We keep a list of dos and don't s. And the list keeps changing with respect to both its elements and the elements’ ranks in the list.

More and more of our generation are becoming career-oriented. And there the bell of prioritizing rings!!.. As otherwise, we will be left behind and we don’t like to lose!!

It is in the recent years that the need of networking(socializing)  has increased manifold and has gained a status of ‘being indispensable’ for ‘survival’, the new ‘having a successful and reputed life’, in this kaleidoscopic world of Facebook and twitter..!

And as we increasingly pander to these requirements, the respective spaces for the priorities in the priority list reduce to such an extent that we tend to forget their respective ranks.

For instance, there is a young recently married, lovely couple that one of my friends know. Now the guy (the husband) has been staying abroad for quite some time and intends to stay there for another year or so, in order to escalate his career prospects, so that he can serve his family in a better way, i.e; his topmost priority is his family and not the career.

But,what if in the mean time, his career takes the topmost priority!! Who can assure that it doesn’t go the other way round in this indefinite article like world where nothing is certain? Now that’s debatable..!

Is there a solution to it ( if you ever consider it as a problem..!!)?

Today, even we might prioritize say, our career over other things in the name of prioritizing something else!!

Now, a child is never a priority to his/her parents because the child is not just an entity to them.A mother doesn’t really prioritize feeding her child or to be there for her child…she simply does it.

Why?

Because she has to do it; she loves doing it; it need not be stated in a priority list, in any list whatsoever!!

So here comes the solution. Perhaps, the solution circulates around the fact that it is not just about how to prioritize but also what to prioritize. Just like a mother does not have to prioritize a child, a husband or a wife need not prioritize his/ her spouse. They cannot compare their spouse with other people or with other Important entities in their lives. They can individually be a part of priority lists of other people(in their so called networks), but not a part of each others' ‘the list’.

So placing your family on such a list, becomes as tricky as playing a trick of mixing pearl and fish eye, in later stages of our lives. You can’t really prioritize your family among other things. You can only choose between the two - having a family(one can define family as per his/her wish) and not having the family. They(family) need not be prioritized at all because of the way we do. Let’s not say that we prioritize our families. They are our families-and their importance need not be explicated!!

As for me, I do not want to be ever reduced to even, so-called, the topmost priority of my parents or my husband’s (once I get married) in future…because priorities always change….and Life is like a series of marathons in which no participant secures the first position always.....!!

The Final Flight of the Feathers

Quickly Alma opened the window

A little rain bird flew in and perched itself on the palm of the widow

“What message have you got for me, my bird

through the thunderstorm you have flown to my place

I’ll always take care of you little bird, I give you my word

Just let me know if my son’s alive under grace….!!”

The bird fluttered its white wings till a Golden Feather fell

She held it with her dampening heart and for a while she went pale

Impetuously her eyes, scurried through the words inscribed

Reading which, the life in her revived

True tears of joy streamed down her cheeks, she ardently proclaimed, “He’s Alive!!”

And As I watched her down from here, I was exulted………………………….

She dozed off into her chair, after the bout of forlorn days

She now atleast knew that both she and her son were kissed by the Golden sun rays

As the morning blossomed with the fragrance of sunlight

The rain bird chirped incessantly like a child till she arrived

Alma fed the bird with grains and water

She pampered the bird as if it were her own daughter

She wanted to reap the overgrown past and grow her future

But how could she do it…after all she was a mother…!!!

As I watched her down from here, I missed her warmth, and I shuddered…………………..

Years went by, with her each day, spent on the wings of the bird

Alma recited lullabies to it at nights, she went on living like this unperturbed

And then one day the news of the war stumbled upon her doorway

“The War is Over..!!”, she chirped like a bird..just like the rain bird

She was to meet her son, the twinkle of her eyes

She sewed the future events of his life, for him she had to find a lovely bride

The innocuous bird panicked caged in the incongruous sight

The now fledged bird couldn’t grasp the meaning of Alma’s behaviour

As I watched her down from here , I too feared…………………………!!!

One day it thundered and the tumescent clouds outbursted, as if failed to feign the pain,

Amidst the angst, the bird was caught yet again…!!

Alma this time awaited her daughter, she sat near the window praying

Till the bird flew in , and this time another feather, but a White One, fell out of its vest,

And Alma intuitively picked it up in a haste

It read, “I love you, my mother, and I miss you more than ever

But I want to make you aware, of the fact that my scars have now become fade

The rain outside your window has wet me, but don’t worry, I won’t catch cold

and I can see the sun winning over the sky, and forming the rainbow, it looks just  beautiful from here

but let me confess a lie, that I can no more wear

I had to lie, as you and your daughter were alone and needed to be taken care of ,

When you had met it at first, when the golden feather it had doffed

I had sent it, to you, for you, my Mother..

I was avowed that you would love it the way you would love your daughter

You’ve waited for me for a long time and now that the war is over

Now’s the  time for you to confront the inevitable truth….

the truth of the feathers…………………”

As I watched my mother down from the heaven, I missed her rebukes more than anything else in that world…

She wept helplessly deluged in her grief,

Which I had anticipated earlier and so to save her, I had sent the bird, the little nymph..

Who roosted on my mother’s thin shoulders

The bird chirruped a tune, which it had learnt while crossing the heaven’s borders

As I watched her, down from here, I too hymned the song…

That night I tried to sleep, but grief had thorned my pillow

I then heard a familiar lullaby, soothing me, gliding high from underneath the sky,  from under a willow

I got up and saw the mother’s beautiful face cupped on her palm, looking out of the window

She didn’t drag the grief anymore, she had learnt to bid farewell to the yore

She was singing the lullaby, for me, like always she had in my childhood

She knew, that she alone had the power to heal my scars

And so, As my mother watched me, up from her house, her eyes shone

I was freed from the heaven, freed from the insatiable heart borne

I then finally winged my Golden Feathers, to Fly Higher… to diffuse into the White Dawn…….

PARALLEL UNIVERSE

                                                              Flames to dust ,Past to existence

                                                                 Iron to rust, gold to pretense

                                                                Time to haste, love to revenge

                                                             Glut to waste, glory to demotion

                                          In my mind all of it piles up to clog the drainage

                                                      Dull isn’t it, is this what you wanted?

                                         To see the nasty peril taking you into its bondage??

I drag my feet against the ground

I dance for the devil anonymous, unaware, like a clown

How many times would you give the devil a chance

It makes a mockery out of your life and you still take it as a prank

Can you not see the face, of course you can’t, you’re blindfolded

A rigid shaft in which your life has already been molded

You cannot see the unseen with your naked eyes wide open

But I see it through my twitched eyes,through the convoluted fiber woven

It is the destiny that arrogates everything we ever own

It is the devil that binds us to our life in this world, whether idyllic or forlorn….

Take me to the first dew, to an early morning rain

The life poured into our bodies cannot be now changed

We can at least adulterate the poison with antidote forced into our veins

Take me to the freshwater of the free spirited river

 flowing ahead of fixated constellations, in an aplomb manner

Our ears benumbed by the blaring sounds of horns

 popping out of the world’s cloak’s every invisible hole

Take me to a sky where chirpy birds glide Higher Heights

away from the black hole, free after scraping the ugly witch’s face full of black moles

Take me to the land shining soothingly with reflection of the moon

We may not live, although we can sojourn in a celestial world,

A terrain no one ever reigned, beautiful with flowers and leaves

We’ll make it true with our efforts solid with determination and soft with dreams

At least, I do get success every time I shut my eyelids when heavy with the burden

I can open them feeling light  in my perfect world which in the real world is seldom

And this perfect world on the other side of my eyes,

slips away from the shackles of my life,

and so I walk into this  PARALLEL UNIVERSE  that I’ve designed,

in which the flame of love lives throughout the time and

Where gold is only the nature of heart of every person here

Where destiny is interdicted and time flows like a perennial river…….

                                                                                                                                                                                                             

The cloying Sip- a blissful memory

“TA TARUPTUP TA-AN RA RA 

TA TARUPTUP TA-AN RA RA 

NESCAFE…”

 I remember when I first saw the add, I loved it; coz the model it showed looked independent and free-spirited. And immediately I had imagined myself to be living in my own flat with a coffee-machine in the kitchen. It gave me that sense of independence. So, I started loving coffee, not just because of the advertisement, but also because of its life-like taste; bitter, yet to be consumed, where you can add a little sweetness to it in just a right amount.

And then god bestowed us (coffee lovers) with CCD(Cafe coffee day) and Barista Lavazza. I used to go the outlets of CCD in metro walk (the most visited place during my college days!) where I usually had ‘kaapi-nirvana’ or ‘tropical ice-berg’.

So one day, I went to metro-walk with my best friend; both of us being coffee lovers, decided to go to then hallowed CCD. Also I wanted to have a ‘garden sandwich’ which is served grilled with mayonnaise in between, there in CCD.

So we went to the CCD and somehow got an ill feeling. It was a bad omen. We should have understood it. But, we didn’t…..!!!!!

 We sat there and soon we found out that the air conditioner was not working(max temp:40̊C) and so I felt suffocated and found it hard to maintain my composure in that nauseating hall,  overcrowded with families with air stuffed with loud noises made by blabbering customers. We felt as if we were seated in McDonald’s rather than in CCD. That was just not our usual CCD….!! So we dropped the idea of the ‘garden salad’ and ordered just the ‘kaapi nirvana’… It felt like hell sitting in there but I hoped gallantly that I would soon feel better once the coffee arrives. But it was seriously suffocating so we decided to change our seats and occupied the ones where apparently the air conditioner was stronger (our observation as regular customers!!). But the coffee didn’t arrive. We ordered once again. We waited with my hope diminishing in direct proportion to the time elapsing.

The coffee finally arrived.

We first decided to have the whipped cream but couldn’t have much of it as it was saccharinely sweet. We mixed it with the rest of the coffee. We then had the first sip of the coffee and it reminded us of a sugar syrup. We realized that something was terribly wrong with the coffee. This is not how our coffee tastes like!! And it wasn’t worth some 93 rupees!! I then complained saying, “I told you I can have coffee from McDonald's and that too for just Re 30 and it’s not bad…!!”.  We couldn’t have it and wondered if one of us could complain them regarding the ‘sugar-syrup’. We couldn’t complain. So to relieve our frustration we decided to write a note on the napkin. But none of us had a pen or a marker and were again realized of our bad luck. But we had to write a note and could not have given up that easily and so we did write,

                                  :(

                       BAD COFFEE
                                  :(

                                  

                                        , with coffee using a straw on the napkin and kept it on the coffee mug and went to the counter for the payment. But then with an askance I saw the waiter crumpling the note carelessly indifferently without reading it, above of which we had to pay the service charges which further escalated my saturation level and made me furious and so I blurted out our complaints….!!!

We were then given another mug of coffee and were asked to taste it. It tasted the same but we didn’t complain. Instead we went out and threw it in a dustbin… We could simply not have it; it tasted awful………………..!!

We then decided to have ‘aloo-tikki’ from the food–court there as we wanted to have something spicy(edible) and sit in an air-conditioned place. We got the coupon for it from inside the food-court and were asked to go out of the court, to the stalls situated outside it. We realized it was one of our bad days as we stood helplessly in the hot stream of air coming from the hot pan of ‘aloo tikkis’ and even they tasted unusually vapid……. It was indeed our bad day…!!...I then decided to get cold coffee from McDonald's which brought me some respite and he got noodles’ box from Bercos (a Chinese restaurant)takeaway in which noodles were rare. They were bad.

So we couldn’t get either a good coffee or a good air conditioned place.

But what had really disappointed us was the ‘BAD COFFEE’!!!...which of course did distort the musical image of the NESCAFE ad in my mind for sometime…!!!!

Albeit, I still love coffee and the likes of Barista Lavazza as most of the coffee lovers would…

And yes...................HAVE A NICE COFFEE…!!!