Dree-Mee-Mee

Part I

It was another hot Sunday afternoon.

The sun, possibly with the mistaken belief that Sunday is totally his day, was shining through brightly in all his splendor and perhaps was sweating in his own heat due to the effort. That might be a pretty good explanation for the humidity.

"What a thought... what a deeply amusing and totally ridiculous thought" I thought to myself, rather lazily as I stifled a yawn.

So, it was another hot lazy Sunday afternoon.

And I didn't have a thing in the world to do. I was lying on my bed in my gadget-cluttered and cloth-scattered room which some poor soul in the past had intended to be used as a decent bedroom when he built it. I try my best to respect his intentions.

The heavy lunch of the hour gone by started taking effect, lulling me into a state of mental relaxation that people these days pay to achieve in those weekend meditation classes. Only to return to their stressful and frown-faced selves on the weekdays.

But I was far from frowning. In fact I was far from doing anything worth remembering. Nothing to remember except the fact that the fan on the ceiling above me was doing what I was doing... not working.

“That’s strange” I thought “It’s supposed to be doing something else: rotating around its axis, whirling and whirling and whirling...”

But it was not. I guess the fan was in its own state of relaxation this weekend before getting stressed on the weekdays.

I cursed the fan. "Damn you! What kind of fan are you that cannot do the one thing you know … rotate"

It took some time for my fuzzy brain to see a piece of reason; the fan was not working because the good (sometimes bad) people of the Electricity Supply Company on my side of town had temporarily come out of their relaxed state to fix a faulty high tension wire somewhere down the road. And as it so often happens in life, something down the road affects you in ways that defies the principles of independence you believe in.

The power supply line had been disabled for the repairs. No power hence no fan. Now that made sense. My mind relaxed again.

I thought to myself (lazily again) "I might as well grab a nap now". It’s amazingly disconcerting to think how little man can achieve if there is no electricity to keep him company.

I yawned and settled comfortably into my favorite sleeping position.

And sooner than you can say ‘sweet dreams’ I had started drifting into the world of sleep. Deeper and deeper... higher and higher... deeper and higher...higher and deeper... yes, opposites have no meanings now. Nothing has a meaning now. It’s another world.

I looked around myself. “Wow, I know this place...but… where am I?”


(To be continued…..)

The Boat

A poem I wrote today.... wow! some experiences leave behind an after taste :-)

RETEQQGHDKAABCFJHAKFHSAKH

6

Oh my lady,

Dear friend of mine,

I see your tears

Behind your smile

You think you can

Hide what you are,

But not from me

I've seen your scars.

I've been with you

On lonely days,

We shared so much

In that better place;

That place is now

Just a memory,

Your face is all

I now carry;

A happy face

Till I last saw it;

Tides were changing

We din't know it.

Waters turned rough

The boat was sinking;

In times like that

Who can be thinking?

So here we are,

Remnants of that boat;

And I'm still wet

I'm still afloat.

'

RETEQQGHDKAABCFJHAKFHSAKH

The Moment of Clarity

Who am I?
Where am I going?
Why does the river flow
Against me when I'm rowing?

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What is your first thought when you wake up in the morning? Is it a feeling of elation? A sense of dread? A sinking heaviness weighed down by the realization that maybe nothing worthwhile is gonna happen today? A yawning thought that it’s going to be "another" day of the week just like "any other" day of the week? The only difference between them being a "y" which most of us, by nature, fear asking. Why? Cuz its assumed to be a question in vain. Cuz "hey… this is how everyone lives. Who am I to have it any different?"

There you are! You just asked the question.. "Who am I to have it any....? " No. Just the first 3 words: "Who am I?"

Now there is a question worth asking. Much more important than the legendary "to be or not to be". Ok. So you might think it’s a crazy thing to ask yourself at a time of the day when you are more likely to be deciding whether to pee or not to pee.

But there I was that morning (a few weeks ago), like many other mornings, lying in bed and asking myself this very question. "Who am I? And where am I going?” Pondering about the meaning of it all. Why... Why.. Why...

I spent a few quiet minutes in this state of impending dawn of reason and realization. It never came. So I droned a request: "tow your boat away mind. I just awoke- so be kind". Nah… if only the mind was like one of those smart family dogs. It would listen to me, roll over and play dead. I would have it easy then... if only...

I lick my tooth paste and pick the morning newspaper and read it as I brush my teeth of many years. As usual, I start with the comic strips... Calvin & Hobbes is a favorite, as is Peanuts... just as I finish guffawing through the bubbles in my mouth I happen to glance at the daily horoscope right underneath Calvin's brainy head in the strip.

PISCES: ".......you may feel more successful than usual, and the confidence you gain as a result can serve as the inspiration that drives you to reconsider your current path."

“…. reconsider your current path" . Don’t know why I re-read those words. I don't believe in horoscopes

I turned to the main pages of the paper. Bah! As expected: Same news, different people; same stories; different twists, same endings. Why do I even bother reading them? There is a reason ain't there? It’s because we all want to know what happened. But more importantly.. What happened to whom? The people who manage to find themselves in the newspapers have to be somebody, having done something in their lives - good or bad.

With a bored sigh I turned to page 2 & 3... spreading it out like a baby albatross and pored over the writings... that’s when I came across a couple of news clippings that caught my attention.

One was about a 7 year old boy who had died in a wall collapse right next to his home. He was playing with his older brother near a house under construction when the walls came tumbling down (I could hear Def Leppard singing in my mind as I read these words). The poor child was crushed.

Another was about a 4 year old who had fallen into an uncovered borewell in a field where he had wandered off after lunch. After struggling for more than 48 hours, he died alone and scared - 72 feet inside the earth. They brought him out lifeless only to bury him again.

The brush in my mouth stopped moving. My eyes stared for sometime at the words without actually reading them. Cuz my mind had refocused onto something else. An answer. Now, these were not somebody who did something in their lives, cut short so cruelly. They were part of the world yesterday but now they are a piece of news- part of the newspaper archives. Here were 2 lives that were snuffed out before they started to live. Cruel intentions from someplace above? Ill fate? Destiny? Call it what you will...

As I kept reading the newspaper I started seeing how many people actually die in a single day... untimely deaths... with dreams unfulfilled, hopes suspended, families shattered, so much left undone... accidents in the city, terror attacks in the valley, bombs in the Middle East, floods elsewhere in the country, earthquakes half way across the world... all resulting in one common tragedy... lives wasted.... and we see it everyday, never noticing it or feeling it.

Wonder how I never saw all this with this kind of realism before, though I read the papers everyday. It was like a moment of clarity. “…..the inspiration that drives you to reconsider your current path”. (I still don't believe in horoscopes)

I realized I had at least one plausible if not feasible answer to my question... Who am I? .... I'm the one that survived, I'm the one still living and breathing, the one who has an opportunity to live my life as well as I can... the one whom destiny didn’t interrupt... hence I'm the one to whom destiny does not exist. At least not the one I don't define... not yet.

It's amazing, the human mind. Sometimes it is like that smart family dog. Some vague answer, like a ball, is thrown near you from somewhere, and your mind fetches it, happy with the result. Just like that dog is happy fetching the ball.

I folded up the depressing newspaper, but I had a new spirit and enthusiasm in me … life is good, why spoil it with grudges and hatred? We don’t know when the walls will come tumbling down… but till then I can keep myself and those who choose to be with me or around me happy.

Who am I? I’m a happy man

My First Blog

Hello friends,

This is my first blog ever. But not my first words. Have always been writing - more of poems and lyrics than full length articles really. I guess this is my opportunity.

I will be posting my thoughts, experiences, ideas, opinions, maybe a few poems I wrote, etc.. etc.. Hopefully they will turn out to be palatable to the good reader's sensibilities.

Welcome to my words.