Parrot-Daughter

Parrot-Daughter

When we were growing, my mother was always a busy person. Three of us were proving to be handful for her and being all boys, she had to show more patience and ‘strength’. She used to remain busy preparing us for our schools, making us study along with the daily chores of home. As time passed by, we all 3 brothers moved away from home for education.

Once a busy-bee, now she had remained with an empty house and all the time in the world. In her words, “all off springs flew away one by one, leaving the nest empty”. Once you have a purpose, you keep working towards it and it gives meaning to daily activities. But once the purpose is unavailable, the activities become mundane and days become harder to pass by. A vacuum having elongated time and entrenched space is like the ‘matrix’, you never know what is a dream and what is reality, one becomes the continuation of the other.

Then father brought a “parrot”. A first pet as an addition to the family. Now her daily life got some additional activities like feeding, talking to the baby-parrot.

She always dreamt to have a daughter. Mother and daughters share some special bonding which on contrary father and sons seems not to develop. I can always remember her favourite line, “If only I had one daughter……..” She never completed the sentence but this half-empty sentence became a part of her existence, something lacking in her otherwise happy and content life.

Now that she had a parrot, the vacuum of a daughter could be easily fulfilled. Faith and belief are powerful forces, they can give life to stone-idols, age-old rituals; here she was having a living parrot. She could now talk for hours with her and her existence became complete. The monologues with her daughter parrot became a placebo for curing her pangs of loneliness.

Well life was going through its rhythm when one day she forgot to lock the cage and parrot flew away. This sad event again brought her life to halt, she would sit in the front porch of the home and look at the nearby trees with hope that her daughter was somewhere nearby and had just forgotten her way back home. The endless wait and constant looking on trees made us feel helpless, emotional attachments are really difficult to get away with. The repeated offers to have another parrot were summarily rejected with a vow to never have a pet again.

Father was compassionate and wise in saying, “Well! Daughters are meant to leave home and one can’t have the luxury to keep them for life”. We were little unkind and used to tease her, “Daughters are flying away from home, all by themselves these days”.

Those were the days of rainy season and every year these monsoon winds bring back those memories of a daughter she once had…

Head and Heart

Head and Heart

Soul has got trapped amidst two warriors, head and heart,

Both have their claims and both want precedence

Inconclusive, Soul remains in the doldrums.

Head says,” I am supreme, listen to me”.

If I weren’t important, why would I lie on the top?

I analyze, I strategies, I am your well-wisher.

I am like the bitter medicine,

I am like the surgeon’s knife,

In short run, you may criticize,

But I am the future.

I have seen this irrational world and

It’s me who has reigned supreme.

I have unmasked the myths and fear,

I have empowered the feeble peers.

It’s me whose deeds will remain, after years you are gone.

Follow me, follow me, I am supreme.

Heart says,” I am the nerve-center, I am supreme”

What will this life be, without me?

I am the blood flow, I am the emotion.

If I weren’t there, you would have remained primitive.

I make you respond, I make you feel.

I make you aware of the unrealized dreams.

If tears would dry, if sensitivity is lost,

If emotions vaporize, if feelings freeze,

Will you still like to live?

I am irrational, I don’t judge.

I give you hope, I give you dream

I give everyone its due; I fill your bland life with all hues.

Follow me, follow me, I am supreme.

Soul wakes up and weighs its option

Tradeoffs and payoffs, all are on the table

It longs for longevity, head is ahead

It longs for warmth and compassion, heart takes a lead.

It tries to balance both, but can’t succeed.

One must win and one must lose

Eyes are heavy with unseen dreams

Shoulders droop and soul wanders

Whether it will take a final call?

Head over heart or heart over head or head over heels ?

The Cook

He was an overweight man aged around forty with a big face; eyes were big and occasionally red with aftereffects of extended happy hours. When he came at first, he was shy, little nervous and would be hesitant but with gradual passage of time he became normal.
I had very limited conversations with him and that too a few lines. He was not a very talkative person and reticent to get started but he was a punctual man and missed on his assignments only on a few occasions. Although he was not so articulate in his work and he was like a PSU, provider of heavy duty support but lacking the luster of glitzy presentation of private sector.
His body weight was disproportionate to his length and his age, reulting in the loss of agility. He was also not very well versed in the language we spoke and this led to many a times communication gap causing havoc with the assigned work. I tried to gather the info from his body language, his implied meaning and was occasionally successful in my efforts. Language is seldom a barrier when both people are really interested in the communication.
He was jobless when he came to us and with associated burden and anxiety of running a family of five people; he was in desperate need of employment. Family is bedrock of existence and all happiness that we derive does trace their root to it. But we tend to forget that someone is somewhere making some sacrifice to make it happen.
It has been an association of 5 months and like all things good or bad, they have to come to an end. Most of the time ending an association is as painful as ending of a relationship.We, humans are wired up to live in groups, we develop dependencies on each other and the void that gets created is seldom filled up by another one, no matter how much we try.
I could look into the same reddened eyes and feel the pain, the anguish and some sort of betrayal he was holding against me. He was as usual timid in expressing his feelings and when one is unable to vent off his anger by verbally expressing it, the resulting facial expression is sickening.
Although he has started working in three four more places and is economically well off, still I am sad for him. He was the provider of food to us, the esteemed cook and I will remember his departing face for a few more months, the man with a huge face with big red eyes.

A travelogue

There is always something to learn and to experience when we travel from one place to another. It is said that Life is a book and the people who don’t travel read only the first page. We meet so many new people and get a lot to learn from the behavior exhibited by them. The learning is much more than what we gain from reading a book or attending lectures from eminent teachers.
In past few months I got chance to travel a lot and thus occasions to meet new people and observe the human behavior from an arm’s length. I had chance to travel by the omnipresent railways and the new flood of budget airlines.
What I have enjoyed most is travelling by the sleeper class of railways, may be belonging to the Indian middle class has its own impact where we find the set up in sleeper coaches similar to as we have in our joint family homes, always people swarming by our side with whom we can strike conversations ranging from studies, weather, politics and probe each others past as well as future plans and that too without feeling any remorse for trespassing each others private space. With hawkers, vendors, beggars passing through the coach endlessly the swarm of people make us feel as if we were a part of a happening society, never haunted by the loneliness, the bane of nuclear families nowadays.
Travelling by 3A depicts the syndrome of a middle class who is newly rich and has hopped from lower middle to upper middle. The identifying features are the legacy mannerism like loud conversation and still being price conscious while buying the stuffs. He is in transition so very unsure and unpredictable behavior is exhibited.
Travelling by 2A is like a person who is rich from a generation and finds solace in the secure space of the curtained coach. Unlike the sleeper class the window glasses are frosted or the visibility is next to zero, why would the rich like to see the difficult life outside, they are too safe and aloof in their cocoon which they have build around themselves .They are so engrossed in their own life that they need coach attendant for even trivial services similar to pampering a spoiled child. Their conversation revolves around the bountiful wealth they are having. They talk of holidays at exotic locations, fine dining places and all the good things they can afford. Conversation is rich in politeness and courtesy, low in pitch and quite entertaining.
Travelling by air is as if one is the king. Far above the harsh living condition of world and cruising at 35,000 feet one loses the complete touch with the ground realities. I do not know how our leaders are still able to maintain the touch with the ground people when they are routinely flying at so much of altitude, quite remarkable of them. Air travel has become quite affordable lately and it makes a person feel like a bird who has acquired new pair of wings. Charming young ladies are placed to serve and since outside window it is just cloud or sun, much better option is to have a look at what we have got inside. The air hostesses are talented people, apart from the presentable appearance they are actors, matrons as well as the sales professionals, all molded in one. They act and show how to fasten seat belts, they supervise if each one has fastened it properly and then they sell branded items as well. People generally don’t converse so no idea about their view point, but they are also engrossed in their own life and so immersed that they try to utilize the 2-3 hrs journey by working on their laptops.
All scenarios depicted above are based on my own experience of travelling from east coast of India to western part .It is not that I am sort of eaves dropper by nature but human nature is quite intriguing for me and the behavior exhibited makes me think Why does one behaves the way he does? Can I find an explanation? Can I extract any learning out of it? So out of curiosity I routinely lend my ear to fellow passengers, observe them and now since this has become a sort of habit, I might have become an observer but certainly not obnoxious, I don’t stare just steal the occasional glances and that works quite well for me and quenches my curiosity.

Love: An affair intrinsic to human nature

Love: An affair intrinsic to human nature
I have grown up watching bolly wood movies and have always felt the same tickling effect when characters are trying to get closer. These human behaviors are timeless and the urge never gets subdued. As a baby cries for milk without being taught, same is the case for this behavioral phenomenon, they are so intrinsic that they just need proper condition to germinate and display them. A man is by and large a by product of love between two individuals ,so from origin itself he is so enmeshed with these ideas that it is next to impossible to disassociate himself from it.
Now How about describing what is love? Love is a feeling so hardly an objective evaluation is going to be of any help. It is something like wind, presence is felt but difficult to describe. It starts with physical attraction and culminates in the higher form of bonding. Now is being physically attractive an important criteria to fall in love? For majority of cases answer will be in affirmative and no for a minority of cases. Can one get in love with another without being attracted? Leaving that spiritual dimension.
Attraction is important. Nature provides answer, Flowers have to be beautiful, must have nectar to attract bees necessary for pollination and continuation of specie, Cactus don’t need bees, I guess! In cases related to human, female member are beautiful like flowers, they have virtues and mannerism to take breath away from the male members, the bees and thus justifying the theory of attraction being the first step at the altar of love.
Now when members of opposite sex get attracted then how do they proceed in this saga of love? For human relationships are important and love acts as a glue to keep these relationship going. Now the baby steps of physical attraction gives way to the deeper bonding. One celebrates the companionship and separation seems to inflict excruciating pain. Why this so much of dependency?
As food is necessary for survival, similarly the forged relationship becomes food for the soul and in absence of one’s soul mate; the inflicted hunger causes the suffering. But why dependency on one person? If one is thirsty, why not drink from the other sources available than insisting on the previous acquainted sources? Is the quenching of thirst important or the water-source is vital?
Stories depict narratives of men who get devastated when they were separated from their beloved and the great sufferings they faced; they make good reading stuff, legends. But they are heavy on common sense. People say it is difficult to apply any logic in love but is not that being primitive? Logic being defied in case of emotional cases is at the root of all these miseries and it seems inconclusive. Rationality is an important trait human have and is as vital as the love, letting heart take control over head is an unfortunate event and of catastrophic after-effects. But the dichotomy of head or heart over matters is an unending reasoning.
Moving to next question why do people love? What else will they do ….The hermits or a nun’s life is too dry and it makes hell out of life. God made us to celebrate the gift of life. Life is a punishment in itself considering the nuances one has to deal with in due course of life , so what love does is to make it tolerable, acts as sedative to reduce the life-pangs. Being loved by someone is a great feeling; it makes one feel that he has some reason to exist. It gives a purpose to life and acts as a wind sail to carry the ship of life over the sea of time. The deficiency of love sucks away the vitals and leads to stunted growth and hampers any improvement in the situation.
Does love only mean getting the necessary attention and recognition from the member of opposite sex?
Love has a very large circumference. It encompasses every thing that a human is able to perceive. One can be in love with the work he does, one can be in love with the people around him and society as large, one can be in love with the ideology he has faith upon, one can be in love with morality, integrity of himself. The area is so vast that narrowing it down to likings and affairs of ephemeral humans is just a part not everything.
Love u all!
Bye for now

Morning walk

Today I went as usual for the morning walk cum jogging. A few days back I saw a man sleeping under a shed in the football ground. I used to think he was put up there by college to guard the equipments at night; but that was not the case. He is just a vagabond and homeless.I was having an extra blanket so I thought it would be better if I give it to him. I went up to him and kept the blanket where he was sleeping; of course he caught a glimpse of mine and before he could thank me I went away.
People who are in need have more recalling capacity than the usual folks. Today he came by while I was doing the same routine stuff in the field and pleaded if I could arrange some money for him. How unfortunate for him to be a grown up man and ask a younger person for something; even a thought of it shivers me. Anyway I tried to pacify his repeated request and ask him to come to the hostel.
As usual when u are in charity business you are caught in between should I help or just procrastinate, of course you cant take care of all the destitutes. But sanity prevails and generally we are forced to think as humans should. I took some old clothes and biscuits I was having with me to give him in a polythene bag.
Eager eyes of a waiting man are so penetrating; one can’t stand the glare of it. I handed him the stuff I carried for him, but more than those he was willing to get some monetary assistance. I handed over him the little sum I was carrying.
Then as it goes just by intuition I asked his name. He said “Vincent”; ah! A Christian name. so from where? Kerala sir! I knew it….!! so perfect way of speaking English, must be from god’s own country with the highest literacy rate in India. Even 10¬ & 2& 4 years of education has not been enough for most of us from cow-belt or hindi belt as they say, to speak fluent and good English.
I was preparing to sign off when he dropped the biggest surprise which still I have not been able to convince myself with. He said I used to study here in M.I.T. then due to some family problem he could not complete his studies and due to family feud he has to flee from his native place. He repeatedly said once I was like you but now I stand here with nothing more to loose; since I have nowhere to go I like to spend my days here in campus and try to remember the gone by days.
This nakedness of human life is enough to shake even the strongest people. Fate, circumstances and the changing times are so crucial that can make your world come crashing down..And we think we are the creator of our luck!
Aristotle has remarked “education is jewel in times of prosperity and the rescuer in times of adversity”;today’s Times of india’s thought….(21/1/10)
I think then why Vincent has become so helpless that instead of using his education he is struggling to feed himself with manual labor…Has he surrendered to the crashing fate or he was just trying to hide something else?I departed with a heavy heart wishing none should meet the fate of Vincent…
Balendu shekhar ; manipal

morning walk

Morning walk

Today I went as usual for the morning walk cum jogging. A few days back I saw a man sleeping under a shed in the football ground. I used to think he was put up there by college to guard the equipments at night; but that was not the case. He is just a vagabond and homeless.I was having an extra blanket so I thought it would be better if I give it to him. I went up to him and kept the blanket where he was sleeping; of course he caught a glimpse of mine and before he could thank me I went away.

People who are in need have more recalling capacity than the usual folks. Today he came by while I was doing the same routine stuff in the field and pleaded if I could arrange some money for him. How unfortunate for him to be a grown up man and ask a younger person for something; even a thought of it shivers me. Anyway I tried to pacify his repeated request and ask him to come to the hostel.

As usual when u are in charity business you are caught in between should I help or just procrastinate, of course you cant take care of all the destitutes. But sanity prevails and generally we are forced to think as humans should. I took some old clothes and biscuits I was having with me to give him in a polythene bag.

Eager eyes of a waiting man are so penetrating; one can’t stand the glare of it. I handed him the stuff I carried for him, but more than those he was willing to get some monetary assistance. I handed over him the little sum I was carrying.

Then as it goes just by intuition I asked his name. He said “Vincent”; ah! A Christian name. so from where? Kerala sir! I knew it….!! so perfect way of speaking English, must be from god’s own country with the highest literacy rate in India. Even 10_­ & 2& 4 years of education has not been enough for most of us from cow-belt or hindi belt as they say, to speak fluent and good English.

I was preparing to sign off when he dropped the biggest surprise which still I have not been able to convince myself with. He said I used to study here in M.I.T. then due to some family problem he could not complete his studies and due to family feud he has to flee from his native place. He repeatedly said once I was like you but now I stand here with nothing more to loose; since I have nowhere to go I like to spend my days here in campus and try to remember the gone by days.

This nakedness of human life is enough to shake even the strongest people. Fate, circumstances and the changing times are so crucial that can make your world come crashing down..And we think we are the creator of our luck!

Aristotle has remarked “education is jewel in times of prosperity and the rescuer in times of adversity”;today’s Times of india’s thought….(21/1/10)

I think then why Vincent has become so helpless that instead of using his education he is struggling to feed himself with manual labor…Has he surrendered to the crashing fate or he was just trying to hide something else?

I departed with a heavy heart wishing none should meet the fate of Vincent…

Balendu shekhar ; manipal