Housemaid

There is stillness in her eyes. She rarely looks at us, keeps herself busy in her work, but I steal away the moment to look into her eyes. Her eyes are big, but they look pale. The dark complexion with emotions too less, makes her face look heavy. I always doubt if she ever smiles. I didn’t see her smile until that day. I have been told that she is here with the family ever since they came to this newly built house. The house is eleven years old now. And I wonder how could she live with a family which is not hers. Yes, she only works here. She lives with this family and does all the household work. She prepares food for the family. My landlady lately offered me to have dinner every night with them at a nominal charge, which evidently I accepted. So I get chances to witness the enigma that the dark lady keeps within herself. Though I don’t comment on the food much, but I have sensed that she stays attentive to know how the food was. Every artist expects a feedback, if not from others then from his or her own self. She is an artist too. Probably she has mastered the art of cooking, washing clothes and cleaning floors from the ground floor to the second floor in this house. Sometimes I feel so awkward to tell my landlady that my room needs cleaning. This would make the dark lady come down and clean my room too. Shouldn’t I be cleaning the room myself? It’s a 10x10 room only by the way.

That day was shocking for me. She came with a packet of sweets as I was about to leave for my office . "It’s my wedding anniversary", she smiled this time. I wished her, and she smiled again. I couldn’t stop myself from asking, "I never met your husband, where is he?"

“You have probably seen him. He stays here, in this house. It’s just that he does not regard me as his wife, and that is why you were not able to know.” She smiled for the last time, and then she turned and walked away. 

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Black & Hue

The disjoined one lies in the morass. It lies still, but keeps squeaking… Snakes and crabs board often now, and that makes the giant recall how swiftly it sailed away masses of twelve to the other side. That abandoned savior on the bank of Ganges, it keeps staring the young ones as they pass by in front of its eyes.

The new and the small, but spirits big and held high in sky, it waves with the air. While the children bathe, it rests and prepares for the next ride. With pride in its youth, it takes the responsibility of the bygone savior.

Sitting somewhere and watching as the sun goes down, I observe how it takes away all the colors with it. The young and the old, the time has plans for each one of them.

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Nomads on their way...

In the warmth of light from tungsten lamps, where adversity dwelt by the roadside, there I walked lonely in stretches that would seem to never end. I would recollect incidences during my walk that happened during the day and would curse them who brought so much hate for me in their hearts. To be the loved one of all, to be the one who is famous and everyone else owns a feeling of warmth for him, this expectation turns into a disaster each time I build my home on it. Nomads don’t own a home. They have chosen to walk, endlessly. They take rests however, but they don’t stop permanently as such. I never wanted to be a nomad. I wanted to settle down at a place, with all the fancy desirables in this world available at my doorstep. There came tides of experiences in the steady streams of time and they soaked me completely, making me aware of the unseen truth and correcting me from the otherwise dreamt stuffs. Nomads are the one who progresses. Their next destination, call it their next goal, can only be achieved if they choose to walk. Those who stop permanently, they land up falling into adversities under the warmth of tungsten lamps by the roadside.

To keep moving requires huge effort. Efforts to keep yourself motivated, to keep revising plans for achieving your goals, to keep yourself focused when all the human forces are against you. The expectation and desire must not be confused with each other. What is expected by me of all the people need not come true always, and that should not be conceived as a hurt to me. Desires are dear to me, and that should drive me. Not the expectation, because expectation is just a belief. Nomads have desire to progress. They take rest, and move on because they have desires to fulfill.
Though I never thought I would be a nomad, but eventually I am one now. The system is so designed that only nomads progress and survive. Progress stops when nomads stop.

I don’t know how much people would be able to relate to this post. But at my personal level, this makes sense to me. I look at the bigger picture, and I find bunch of nomads everywhere. They have aspirations to fulfill their desires. I find myself in one of the bunch too.

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Eternal sunshine of an introvert mind

In some part of the world there is a kingdom where nature basks in glory, where people still trust each other, where love thrives and deception has not stepped in. There lives a kid who spends his evening waiting for the princess to arrive in woods. As usual, he is there sitting on the log, his head dipped down. The tattered brown robe on his body is not enough to defend from the chill that sets in at night. It’s been more than an hour, but there is no sign of restlessness in kid. He knows she is going to come. Shades of trees are stretching with the sun going down. Within minutes the sun will be hidden behind the blue mountains. Cold wind from the west has started to blow. Grazing leaves on the forest floor has started to unsettle the calm.

…and the scene keeps building inside my head while chatter continues in cubicles around me. I don’t wish to break myself off from the imaginary build up projected on the screen of my mind, even when the chatter starts to dip into my own cubicle. But who cares what I want. I don’t want to get into conversations unnecessarily. Yes, I can enact to be a good speaker. But why does someone has to push me for it? The need of the hour drags me off from my comfort zone, and I temporarily pause all the drama inside my head. Damn! I feel pity for my characters who turn jobless while I am conversing with someone. I really enjoy being me.

In between imports of code and its reuses at office, I miss those days when I used to sit back and do nothing. Just do nothing for hours, and stay mused in thoughts; sometimes dark, sometimes illuminated. Now I crave to have some moments for myself where in them I would be alone. I would contemplate on what I did, I would plan what I will do.

As the office hours dissolve, once again I start to frame the story. The projection on the screen of my mind starts. I try to cut off from distractions as far as I can to ensure I have clear and crisp reception of my characters at play. I start to connect the pieces again and the story resumes.

Wolves have started to howl. The sun has set behind the blue mountains. The kid is afraid, he must return home now. His mom would be waiting. But the princess hasn't come yet. He loves his mom more. So he must return now. He stands up, and start to move with his face numb and his heart heavy. He won’t let the tears come. His mom will never wish to see him distressed, he knows. ‘Love is an illusion; I won’t be deluded by promises and die freezing here in woods’. As he was returning, a golden deer came running and stopped beside him. He turns to see the golden deer liberating godly rays. His surprised eyes start to roam on the shining body of the deer. And then he notices there is a letter lying by the forelegs of the deer. He picks up the letter, and unfolds it. The letter reads: ‘Tomorrow at dusk. Wait for me. I shall be there. Love. Only yours…’
Marks of her lipstick on the letter pouts and blows a kiss towards him.

Kid’s smile after reading the letter has taken over me too. His revitalized trust gives me strength for the coming day. I tuck into bed for sleep now. The new day will bring a different story, for me too and for my characters as well. 

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His Ideals in Reflection...

It has been three weeks since I joined TCS. I am being ingrained of moral values along with the main stream training of Java. Through our organisation, we were a part of the movement started by our Prime Minister, Shree Narendra Modi Ji for Swachh Bharat. And other than that, we participated in 3 kms of peace walk on 2nd of October 2014, on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Sharing with you the post that I wrote in ILP community of TCS, Gandhinagar. I am re-sharing the post here with photos that I clicked on that day, though they are little low in resolution as they were shot using a 3MP camera.
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The crowd of people around me is multiplying, but my ability to look around is abridging. What I see is just myself, what I care for is just me. I have sufficient in my account at bank, and I won’t disclose the measure of peace that I keep.

What was the last time you looked at people around you, and were sensitive towards what they were going through? Do you remember an incident lately where you didn't think of yourself first, and thought of restraining the troubles of someone?
We have become excessively self-centered, reactive of forces that affect our own selves directly or indirectly. Our problems weigh so much that the consolidated sum of problems by everyone around us fails to balance it. Our perception constitutes the world within us. Outside this world, universe ceases to exist. What can be the reason for this eccentricity?

We are never satisfied. It’s true that dissatisfaction in human race has helped to reach the skies in terms of our advancement, but has considerably mutated our thought processes. We have stepped into a habit of staying dissatisfied and sad of all those things that we wished we had, but we couldn't end up having them. We are sad because someone else has it, and we don’t. We are dissatisfied with ourselves because we couldn't make ourselves achieve what we wanted. But why are we not thankful of those things that we got in our lives. There are so many reasons to be thankful about. We need to be thankful, and this feeling comes when we get to look around us, realize what others are going through. If we look around, we would come across people who can’t even fulfill the basic needs in their lives, yet they are striving to live. Some might be afflicted severely which others can never think of. It’s good to strive for more, but at the same time being thankful to God for all that he gave us will bring peace. Just by being interested in others starts to bring changes in our lives. We start becoming more insightful of the world which in reality doesn't cease at the end points of our sole interests. The world starts to expand. Shouldn't we be a part of a good cause of helping someone bring down his/her afflictions to some extent?

Mahatma Gandhi has said, ‘The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.’ I take several lessons from what he said. Serve others, and that would bring peace to us. Peace should be the ultimate goal in our lives. Let’s keep the efforts coming, and peace will start to breeze in. I believe that it’s an ongoing process. To make the peace stay, efforts must be brought to play.

Yesterday’s event organized by our organisation on Gandhi Jayanti came to an end, but let’s not forget the ideals that were proposed behind organizing this event. It must be imbibed within us and reflect from our day to day lives. Let’s start to bring peace; to others and to us…

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While it rained...

My eyes used to take me till the horizon where a distant tree met the marshy land. I could see people, though scarce in number and outspread on the field, working as farmers for the crop…The crop that would feed them and us. I witnessed how their hard work benefited us, they made grains available for ourselves to buy. Then, I wondered that someday my hard work would help others too.

Interlaced with their sweat, rain washed the land. They ploughed and ploughed, till the land was ready to produce. In the uninterrupted pelting of rain, maverick birds flew through the wind…Some flew against, while some steered along with the wind.  I felt caged with all my defects in the small room at the roof, while children played outside. It was water here and there, and everywhere.

I heard happiness. I saw it too. I saw secrecy in the ambience where each one conspired for a productive tomorrow. Farmers, birds, children, trees, and the God, they unified themselves below the pouring cloudy sky. I felt caged, but they enjoyed. They enjoyed themselves to the fullest, mocking me of the pitiful captivity I was in. Real chains were not necessary, my own thoughts of my defects had made me a slave.

After clouds faded off slowly into the pitch black and while the rain continued, a wise owl obliged me by resting at my window. I don’t remember when my eyes closed and how I leapt into the house of a farmer. But before I could have completed my play with their children, the owl woke me up. He said that he has come to my rescue, to unchain me. ‘The key to your chains is in your point of view’, he said.

The next day was different. I heard happiness and I saw it too. But I became a part of the ambience now. Farmers, birds, children, trees, me, and the God, everyone unified themselves below the pouring cloudy sky, and we conspired for a productive tomorrow. The gloom of grey in surroundings was changed, because my point of view was changed. Keys to the most endured locks lie within us.

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In the praise of Lord Ganesha

I meditate on the glorious Lord Ganesha, clad in sparkling robe, omnipresent, endowed with four arms and a benign smiling face to ward off all impediments.

In all my good and bad, you make me aware of your presence. 
If death is about to come in the next move of the puzzle piece, I shall not be afraid to make it. 

I chant your name no matter what comes now, you will remain the king of all puzzles we were afraid of.

If you liked the photographs, don't forget to 'Like' my Facebook page. :)

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In love...

From the patches of scorn,

You furbished a clean soul.

In light of the goodness I wasn't aware of,

You infused a healed life in me.

The warmth of your embrace will linger,

Till the time the sun shines

And the moon cools the planet blue.

I rejoice the cherished moments we spent together,
In them I found love…

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