The End

 

It was drizzling as I walked back home after my Sunday evening mass. Jumping from here to there, avoiding the muddy potholes I reached my street. Nivya road was relatively well maintained, thanks to the ex-minister who lives in the area.

Setting a mind-plan of what was to be done before I left for hostel, I entered my house. The rain drops falling on the aluminium roof created a noisy atmosphere. Still I could hear my sister Ann’s voice loud and clear.

“Chechi, there’ll be a bomb blast in Kochi and Wayanad”. Her voice filled more with excitement than horror. How anyone could be excited at the news of a probable bomb blast, I wondered.

“What? You must be kidding”. I replied rather disinterestedly.

“No, I swear...It’s in the news. See”, she said pointing to the TV. In spite of my sister’s approaching board exams, we hadn’t cancelled our cable connection owing to my dad’s news addiction.

Stroking his grey moustache, dad sat on the sofa right in front of the TV. Bold red letters on the screen read “THREAT OF BLASTS IN KOCHI”

A shiver of mixed fear and excitement ran through my spine. Eh..did I say excitement?, well, it is not every day that you get a bomb blast threat, isn’t it? My initial disinterest suddenly transformed into curiosity.

‘After Bangalore and Gujarat, it’s Kerala’ said a phone call from Islamabad. The call was received by a TV reporter in Bangalore. The blast was scheduled to be at 7:00 pm. I looked at my watch, 6:40 pm – 20 minutes to go. I sighed and took the remote. I swapped between news channels to know just about anything related to the blast threat.

Ministers and officials asked the public not to panic. ‘Panic’ was not something in the dictionary of a Kochiite for, a reporter said that the public was upset the first and second shows in the theatres had been cancelled owing to security reasons. Strange, how people crave for entertainment at the cost of their lives! Keralites have never really understood the impact of terrorism. Some part of me wanted the blast, just to make people realize what the trauma is like. But still....wouldn’t it be a heavy price to pay?

“There’ll be blasts only in states governed by the XYZ party.” My dad said breaking the awkward silence that filled the house. “You are wasting your time in front of this”, he continued. “Why don’t you go do your packing? Nothing is going to blast”.

‘What if I’ll not have to pack at all’, I thought.

“And you, don’t you have a test tomorrow” dad asked Ann who was curled up on the sofa with her pencil sized legs pulled upto her neck.

“Oh! It’s just English”, she said lazily. I gave her a stern look.

“No offense”, she smiled at me. It was not until I took up the subject that I realized how little people valued language studies.

Ann passed me a packet of banana chips. I took a handful and placed it on my lap and passed the packet to my dad.

“Mom, come fast if you don’t want to miss it”, Ann shouted over the screeching sound of our Philips ‘Super Silent’ mixer grinder.

One minute to go. As if watching a rocket launch, the three of us sat glued to the TV.

10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1.. TOH...TOH..

I jerked back only to see my dad have a hearty laugh at me. He had burst the chips packet to scare me, and it did scare the wits out of me. What about the blast? My sister snatched the remote from me.

“What number is Indiavision?” she asked furiously, for she knew only the numbers of MTV and Zoom.

“Three” Dad replied.

For the next ten minutes we scanned channels for news on the blast. In the end my sister gave up.

“What a big fat lie. Why do they give us hopes?” she frowned.

“What hope?” Mom enquired from the kitchen.

“Oh never mind”, she stood up to leave. I looked up at her. She was a few inches taller than me, but her lean body made her look taller than that.

“Now that I have to study for tomorrows test” she mumbled under her breath.

So that was what she ‘hoped’ for – a holiday so that there wouldn’t be a test. Lazy little nincompoop!

Mom came to the drawing room, her hands partly covered with chilli and turmeric paste. She looked through her large spectacles at the TV screen that now showed the scenes from the previous Ahmadabad serial blasts.

“This world is no longer good to live in” she said in disbelief staring at the TV screen. “All these are signs that the last judgement is near“. The paste on her hand dripped onto the mosaic floor as she lifted her hands and prayed “God save us!”

I stood up to leave, now that I had to pack!

LIFE

I have always loved thinking and philosophizing about LIFE. But it was only when I started talking to people about my thoughts that I realized that I’m not yet qualified to talk about life. If you wish to talk about life and your theories on life, pause and see if you fulfill the following criteria

Age: you must be at least in your 40’s or min. late 30’s. Meaning, you have to be sufficiently aged to get the approving nod of your listener or reader.

Experience: You must have had enough troubles in your life so far, perils of fate rather that outcomes of your own deeds.

Anybody who doesn’t satisfy the above conditions and still wish to cerebrate on life would be subject to “How much have you seen life” looks from the venerable!

Whenever life poses a difficulty and you are mentally and emotionally down, the so called experienced hands tell you”ithonnum onnum alla..Jeevitham thudangiyathalle ullu,,,ini enthokke varaan kidakkunnu” (This is nothing. You have just started life. Troubles are yet to come). Please…it’s not as exciting as saying “picture abhi baaki hai bhai”

Everyone has a right to voice their thoughts on life, be it a kid, teen, youth…. One should not belittle another’s trouble, dismissing it by saying bigger troubles will come your way as you grow up.

An issue is an issue, be it big or small. How can you expect one to deal with a crisis by rationally thinking that one might have to face bigger issues in life later on? 

It is true that as you grow old you realize that what was once a big issue is no more an issue. But does that mean that you can tell a person to stop worrying about what’s bothering him this moment.

How good a solution is the advice laden with a prospective future filled with bigger issues? How can it be even remotely connected to the maxims of ‘Think Positive’?

I don’t know if any of this makes any sense. But the very fact that I could put this down itself is a great relief. Sometimes that’s all one I need, simply rant about life and ones my troubles. 

Unhappy Me

I sat at my desk sipping my lemon tea and battling my confusions over my desire to write and to be read. That was when my colleagues came to my desk. My immediate reaction was to minimize the word doc I was writing. All I wished was to be read and here when I had an opportunity to be read, I chose to shy away.

Why? For fear they would ridicule me? For fear their reaction would discourage me? For fear I might not hear what I really wish to hear? For fear that somebody would tell that the writing was too mediocre.

How can what they say influence me to give up doing what I like the most? I always told myself that I do what I like and not what people around me or conventions demand. I do not care what others say or think has always been my punch line. But today I feel I have been cheating myself. When hypocrisy is what I hate the most, I have always been the biggest hypocrite. People and conventions have always affected me. They have always influenced my thoughts and action. I do what people want me to do and end up being dissatisfied and whine about it for the rest of my life. Instead of doing so why dint I ever listen to my heart and do what I liked? In this way I could have been happy inside. I tried to keep the people around me happy without being happy myself. I failed to understand that

• ·         You cannot keep everyone happy
• ·         Keeping others happy need not always keep you happy
• ·         Only if you are happy can you keep others happy

People tipped me to put on a happy face even if I was not really happy. How, neither they could answer nor I could contrive. Life is pursuit of happiness. Though it may sound clichéd, I cannot describe it in any better way. And this happiness has to come from within. It is easily said than done, coz I have found it extremely hard even to feign a happy face.

Why should I put on a happy face for those who feign love? 

To be written but not read

कर्मणये वाधिकारस्ते मां फलेषु कदाचन । मां कर्मफलहेतुर्भू: मांते संङगोस्त्वकर्मणि ।।

Your right is to work only,
But never to its fruits;
Let not the fruits of action be thy motive,
Nor let thy attachment be to inaction.

I always thought that writing would bring me solace. But now that I started doing it, I realized that I wanted more to be read than to write. I’m waiting (im)patiently for that one reader to stumble upon my blog and comment on my thoughts. (Yes, comment coz until and unless s/he comments, how will I know that someone has actually read it). But then my desire to be read and acknowledged stirs a feeling of guilt in me. Should it be more like,

Your right is to write

Not to wish to be read

Let not the desire to be read, be your inspiration

Nor should you stop writing altogether

I wish to write on an on until a little thirst of my insatiable self is quenched. But again, what is the purpose of writing without being read. Had the above ‘gyan’ never been read, it would have saved me from the guilt feeling.

I keep wondering how the blogger turned authors have endured their own phase of “waiting to be read”. Its semblance to “waiting for Godot” is eerie. And the way madness is attributed to writers makes me feel I’m tagged under “soon-to-be-mad” category. This thought however is bizarrely refreshing.

Even before I was a writer or to say in my days of wannabe writer, I faced the so called writers block. It took a meltdown to clear that block. Now I cannot afford anything to block me again from writing, be it my desire to be read. However, the fear of being unread forever is daunting. 

Ambitious Perfectionist

One cannot expect to pen down a masterpiece when one has barely started scribbling down ones thoughts. Yet I try to carefully choose words, construct sentences and streamline thoughts to create that instant best seller…Its ridiculous to expect a 2 year old to run a marathon...the 2 year old can definitely run, but to start with a marathon, it might have to give up long before half way. The patience to moil through my days as a toddler in the world of words is what I do not have. I have to acquire it, because without patience I’m going nowhere.

As a child I dreamed that I was the “punarjanma” of a princess, the last heir to the throne of some unknown kingdom. Was I being too silly? (I still haven’t ruled out the possibility)

I dreamed of becoming the 1^st woman president of India. I still can’t forgive Pratibha Patil for robbing me of my dream. Its jockey or nothing…so I gave up that dream coz I’m not ready to settle for 2^nd.

I dreamed of going on missions to negotiate with terrorists to save the nation. I am a big time patriot. Honestly, who would do such a thing these days if they are not promised to be awarded the “Param Veer Chakra” (definitely not posthumously)?

I dreamed of writing a novel before I finished my class 12. Was I being too ambitious? Dint Ruskin Bond dream and achieve the same? Would anyone dare call him ambitious in a negative sense? I guess no.

Well then what is it that distinguishes his ambition from mine….In retrospect I realized that my ambition should have been made of sterner stuff…sterner stuff as in it should have been backed by determination…hmmm.

I dream big. I guess I took the words of those personality trainers a little too seriously, who ask people to aim for the stars to land on the moon. Here I am aiming for the stars all the way and have not even managed to be on the roof top. I have too many dreams and too weak a will to make my dreams come true.

Alas I can hardly relate the title to the content of the post. Not exactly what I wished to write. But its okay, I need to learn to accept the imperfections and incongruities of life.

On determination

  “Of all the words of pen and tongue, the saddest are those, if only I had”

Some phrases hold a lot of meaning, particularly in your own life. Even if you do not heed to it in the first instance, it lingers somewhere in your subconscious mind and surfaces when an adversity strikes. So is the case with the above lines. I lament over the simple things I could have done to avert the catastrophes that have come my way.

The need to be determined and consistent was never as clear to me as today. Today, I suffer the impact of someone else’s lack of determination and inconsistency. It has forced me into pondering about my own determination and consistency. And I see myself mourning – ‘If only I had’. His lack of determination and inconsistency has shattered my life and dreams. But I ‘am now determined to try to achieve all my dreams that I had once procrastinated or buried due to my lack of determination and inconsistency.

I wished to write; now I will

I wished to go places; now I will

I wished to follow my heart; now I will

Kaal Kare So Aaj Kar, Aaj Kare So Ub
Pal Mein Pralaya Hoyegi, Bahuri Karoge Kub

Apart from mugging up this couplet to be reproduced for exams, its essence never seeped into me.  It is a late start I know, but it is a start after all. I shall languish no more. It is time…..Carpe diem!!!!!!!!