My mum and the true love

She was just fifteen when she got married with my 26 years old dad. A burden upon burden, she shifted herself from her home but not the adversities of life. She was orphaned at a very early age and she doesn’t remember how her parents looked like. After the death of her parents, she and rest of her siblings were raised by her paternal uncle. Her elder brother and middle brother were already into school. Poor her, she never even stepped the threshold of any school. How could she? No one supported her. Her uncle wanted her to remain home and help him.

A time came for as it comes to everyone in life. They say, marriage is a union of two souls. They pledge each other to remain together through the thick and thin of life. The Hindu culture compels a woman to abide by the value of a pinch of vermilion on the slit of hair. An oath a couple makes during the wedding has to be upheld until the time both souls depart. Such purity and truth embed in the wedding of a conservative Hindu couple. So it is for my mum.

Perhaps, fate had not stored in a life everyone desires for-a happy life. Back then, my dad was a spoilt brat. Being the elder and the dear one of my grandpa and grandma, he was a carefree man. Day in, day out, gambling used to keep him busy. Late at night, sometimes at 2 A.M, he used to return home. Every time, waiting for him to return home for dinner, it would become midnight. Sitting by fire, swallowing the swear word of my grandma, my mom would serve dinner to others and wait for my dad to return home. Beer and other intoxicants always took him away from the thought of being with family. May be he never understood the value of family-what it feels to eat with family. What it feels to come home early. In those days, never did he understand how his wife led life. Nor did any siblings of my mum know circumstances my mum was in.

I know how it feels to stay under the reign of a mother in law- early morning waking, together with the cock cross, preparing morning tea, feeding the cattle, plastering the floor with cow dung’s paste, chopping firewood and many more  household chores. These activities never keep a mother in-law satisfied for there will always be some space where she can scold. Starting from the control of salt to the cattle, a mother in-law follows autocratic leadership. In one way or the other, there will be an area where she can pour her anger and dissatisfaction on a daughter in-law. My mother was subjected to such tyranny of mother in law and the whistle blowers paternal aunts. From the salt, rice and oil to the cattle and money, they would keep their eye on my mum.

 No matter if it rained or the sun shone, there was no word called rest. From an early morning until late night, she used to work, suffer and get tired. Who cared if she was tired? A daughter in-law couldn’t sleep before everything was over for a night. She suffered with stomach ache, her painful period and everydays swear words of her mother-in-law. More than that, she suffered from the loneliness and the feeling of being alone. She must have had so many things that remained like knots, to tell to her husband. She must have had complaint about being a scapegoat in the family. She must have wanted to tell my dad that she was tired. However, to whom she wanted to let it be known the most, would never be home and even if he came home, came when she was deeply asleep and left home before she could even see. As a daughter-in-law, the pain and the agony that throb in the heart can be felt by none but herself. Bound by the norms, she can never speak what she wants to. As a daughter-in-law, I know how pathetic life seems but it goes unheeded.

Crumpled and then reshaped in to what she is now, is never a story anyone can narrate or read. Inspite of all the loopholes in relationship; Inspite of feeling alone and left out in life and inspite of travelling alone in life, my mother never complained about it. She moved like she never did before. She survived through the thick and thin of life. Perhaps, she never dreamt her life to be this way. Today, my father is the best in the world. He cares and earns for all of us in the family. Today, if I want to see anyone with awe, then it is my father who has been standing by my brothers and mom like a savior. Like a movie at the climax point, my life stands here. I don’t know what god and the fate have stored in for us but I will always pray to god for the better health and wellbeing of my parents. I want to prove that my parents never made an error of giving birth to me. My mother doesn’t have to do anything except work in the field. My dad buys all the food items needed at home. He looks after if we have enough money in the college.

This is true love. My mom waited for this time to come. She never gave up her hopes. Perhaps she never had such hopes in fate for today we have one of the best and happy families. I learned that time heals all the wounds in life; time is the remedy for hopes. True love always has the part we would always want it to remain but time waits for none. It happens towards the end. My dad has turned 64 now.

Love leaves not a stubborn

Once upon a time,i used to be a man with craze at heart;a man with a lovely feelings for someone my heart would whisper the name of.I used to be a man,to be infatuated to a person who would make me feel i was the happiest soul with him/her.The attachment and the closeness that would rule my life used to make me who i was not. Infact everyone who is in love feels the same-the childish phenomenon.No matter,how strong and stubborn a man may be to his family and friends,there is no one who has not cried for love. Whether it is an unrequited love or the broken love,the kind of feelings one will undergo is the same-the same part of the brain reacts on this;The same neurotransmitter plays the role.

Well,my life has no better story to please my offspring yet i have the experience of being rejected and rejecting.I couldn't love the one who loved me.I couldnot make the who love me happy for i had a different aim in life.
I loved the one who never loved me and remained the unhappiest soul for sometime.Unrequited love hurts as much as the broken one does.Unrequited love gives the same extent of feeling as does the requited one.I am not the person who cannot love.I am not the person who can be loved either.I am not smart,nor am i fair like many are.I am a man who seek to love and be loved.I am man who always want to have a life long love.

In my life,unlike many people,fate has supported me.My dark complexion didn't deserve a person i loved.May be i was too choosy that i endless looked for someone i never deserved.May be my throat was too small for a bone to travel through.I tended to love someone fair in complexion. May be this made her think it was a great insult for her beauty.I know when someone uglier than us say he/she loves us,we feel low.Same thing happened to me.I am a rejected lover in life and that fate has always supported me this way.Some time in life,i used to feel lonely and left out.At times i used to curse my fate for being a jinx.Many a times, i used to hate myself for not getting the love of some one i felt for.No matter if i fell head over heel to a someone i chose,i was always rejected,

Today,i stand here,with a strong heart and as a matured person.I am 25 years old with all sorts of feelings-feelings of a lover,of a son,of a friend and a student.I feel blessed with the experiences and the absence of craze.I thank god and the fate for molding me.Even what we think bad at some point of life happens for good reason.I thank those people who made were not ready to accept my love.They have taught me that unrequited love is not the beginning of pain but the end of craze and the immatured feelings.I have learned through the broken lovers and the unrequited ones that love is not everything for a man,that a life isnot incomplete without a girl to love.I have learned finding happiness in being oneself,in being the lover of the parents.I have learned to feel the true love of the parents and give them the same.i have learned that the best way to say we have true love beyond distance and time,it is by the absence of lovers.
We have parents in whom the world's true love exists.We,as sons,have a responsibility to think about our parents,understand their true love and the way we cry for a girl,have a duty to shed tears to feel them as our god.We have parents to call every night and day and be a hero in their eye.When we are in pain and anguish,we never utter "my wife,chidren or friends,"we say ama,apa" i am in problem.
No matter how strong we are in reality,love weakens everyone.

The dead but haunting past

                                            

Indescrible time of those bygone days,

Unthinkable painful memories;

And vivid thoughts of that dead past

 Still walk in me,

And play in the ground of my mind.

Stars laughing on the heaven,

Moon toddling childishly in the darkness

As if trying to win over the sun;

Voices of silence heard but everywhere

And the darkness intoxicated livings.

Fainted were energy of people;

Lying on the bed were their souls.

He envied the sun,

For he loved the moon:

He loved the moon; hated the sun;

Life was taking him away, away,

From his own little life.

Remained back was her wife,

Awaited his comeback, waited!

Patiently impatient, lost were her passions.

When sun would smile at her door,

She would stare through the window.

Deep in the depth of her intuitions,

She knew, he won’t be back.

Awaited and lost was the patience.

Expectations turned like a wave

And then reality opaque and vague.

Sun woke up and then slept.

From dawn break to dusk fall,

Watched she through little opening,

Through the opening of mind and her house,

She stared and stared!

Tlot, tlot, tlot… “Oh he came!”

Tlot, tlot, tlot… “Hey you came?”

Thud, thud, thud,

“Open the door, open it!        

I have come dear, I have!

Hunger of your expectations,

And thirst of your long wait,

May have driven you mad:

I have come to quench them,

I have come to feed you!”

“Oh, you came, my love?”

“Yea…I will fill your void,

I will brim your emptiness,

I will be your husband.”

They made love through the moon,

Played for hours and hours,

And separated hour ago prior to sun.

Lost in each other’s embrace,

Delight in the new replacement,

She was delighted;

She was excited

  And they were at cloud nine.

Continued the nocturnal game for months,

And between the void and fill,

Lost were those beginning thoughts;

Lost was he, who never returned,

Faded was his love,

Faded were his memories,

And forgotten were their promises.

The glittering vermillion on her slits,

Were but of no significance.

One day, he came;

He returned home,

Thinking he had his children,

He had his land;

He missed his birthplace.

Arrived he in that dark night,

Lamp of cloth rolled in bamboo,

Lit his way and lead him.

Thud,thud,thud,

Thud ,thud, “open the door”,

“Hey, who are you?

Who are you at these late hours?”

‘I have come, I am back dear’.

‘Oh, no,Oh, no!

I will not listen to you;

I am asleep,

I am tired of the day work,

You must be cheating on me”.

Inside were the usual ongoing scenes,

They were making love.

Lost were they

In each other’s embrace.

Angry at the ill response,

Broke he through the door,

Broke it into pieces.

And broken with it was his heart,

Mixed with the fragments,

As the very eye he blinked with

Snapped the scenes,

Burned his beatings his energy.

“Oops…! Oops!

Had this been the night

That I was to have in sight,

I would never have returned!

Had this been what you had for me,

I would never see you!

Get the hell out of here,

Get out, monster!

Disappear from my sight,

You bitch” .

In minutes, invisible were they,

Then the whole earth befell upon him.

The earthquake shook his conscience,

Darkness throttled him,

Suffocated were his breathe,

Trampled were his dreams,

Lost was his happiness.

Night compressed him hard.

All he waited was,

For the breathe to take him away,

He wished but the god,

To take him away:

Away, away, somewhere he would relax,

Somewhere he would forget

The scenes that intoxicated him.

The setting that bruised his sentiments;

The eyesore that distorted,

The rhythm of his heartbeats.

Night passed but in snails speed,

And when the cock crossed,

Before the day smiled with the sun;

He cried his heart out,

On the lap of the Village head.

Red like fire, hot like heat,

His eyes spoke everything,

He wanted with his mouth.

Committee sat, talked and discussed.

Within hour,

She declared that she be away,

That she would leave him.

Hidden in the heart,

Dormant in his blood

Was his love for her!

“Go not away, please!

For I still love you.

Let us create another history of ours.

I will never leave you,

I swear, I be with you;

Till stretched are cold hands

Of death on me.

Till the ends begin, and beginning ends,

Let us be together.

We have children to look at.

We have our promises to stick to,

The wedding mantra that we chanted,

At those hours of our union a forgotten years back.

Let’s not forget   that oath.

Please come, come lets’ go home”

“Oh no…you dark old man!

Where had you been when I needed you the most,

Where the hell did you fade?”

Now I have decided this man

Is my world!

I bid farewell to you

And your properties”.

In his mind was this line playing,

“Ever if I could, I would get you back.

Holding your hands again”.

Everything ended then and there.

Closed was his chapter,

Climax was this point of life for him.

 And Vivid are the thoughts today,

Playing in me, walking in my mind.

Pathetic it is to know

The silver she chose over the gold,

Was her greatest error she made.

I see her today, treading like beggar,

Begging the alms of mercy

For her salvation.

No child of her loves her now,

Even the second husband abandoned him,

Thrashing and kicks

That she never obtained back then

The time she was with him,

The first husband-

In the reminiscence

Always haunted her.

As single as she was in her delivery

Is she wandering today.

No one knows but god,

And no one but her fate,

Has shaken her life.

She has brought hurricane to her own life.

Cycle of karma revolves around her now.

And nothing but the gust of sorrow,

Entangles her feelings.

Repentances throb in her blood,

And weakness has nurtured her.

And indescrible time of those past,

Still lingers in my mind

And I know it will continue!

My cousin Brother and my life

Perhaps, due to the busy schedule of life, I tend to forget he exists. Perhaps, we are overcome with our own duty that we don’t meet each other always. Sometimes he makes a call over a phone and talks with me.

Into his growing old, my childhood is embedded and into mines his, too. I remember those times when we were just kid, may be when I was 12 years old, he had already dropped school. He was then 15 years old. His parents did not necessary to encourage him to go to school. Following a severe illness when he was in class 1 he discontinued his education. He was a little kid with unable to grow tall like I did, so he was nicknamed muso(rat).

His schooling days are boring. Though he was admitted into class PP some four years ago, he somehow became just a year senior to me. When I was at home heading cattle, he was already admitted to school in class PP. After four years, when I joined in class PP, he was just in class one. However, he used to care for me. I remember taking me along with him to swim. I remember taking me to stone mango trees in an attempt to knock down some. Within a short frame of time, I feel I visited most of the places with him-the prohibited and the beautiful ones.

When I passed and was promoted to class one, I was already had him gone away from those wonderful times. He fell seriously ill and couldn’t continue his education.

During winter time, when he used to go herding cattle in to the thick jungle I used to go with him. Infact we were four-my younger brother and I, and he and his younger brother. Sometimes, like a wreathe we used to wear catapult on our neck. A knife slinging on the left side of the waist, we four used to proceed with cattle. Sometimes, fixing snares for rabbit and deer. Sometimes, running after dogs in an attempt to hunt for deer and rabbit. We even used to climb on the cliffs and search for brooms.  While returning home, we used to drag bamboo with our back. I don’t know as to what necessity it was for us to bring bamboo and fence vegetables. As though we were under compulsion, we used to work hard. Sometimes, scratched by thorns of bushes while riding on them, hands and the knees would bloom white and yellow with infections. Sometimes, stained in red, fingers would hurt with knives. We were not compelled by anyone yet our desires and wild enthusiasm would take us into those adventurous sites.

Today we are grown up into a man. Education has brought me here. My cousin brother operates excavator just few kilometers away from me yet we don’t meet. We don’t feel the need to meet. I don’t know if he misses me and those times, but I do miss whenever I think about it. Nothing but just a handful of those memories is left and we move on with life.

Thank you teachers

Beyond the reach of any wisdom,

Beyond the horizon of truth,

And beyond the scale of existence;

You hold the universe on your virtues,

And remain the legendry of our hearts.

In the unending quest of almighty lord,

I surveyed every nook and corner:

Of the temple,

Of the sacred site,

Of the busy market,

Rummaging through;

The Statues,

The arts,

And the prayers

Yet, nowhere did I find you.

Veiled in the face of mundane human,

Dressed in the kindness’ attire,

Speaking from the bottom of truth,

Casting a spell on our sleeping dreams;

You emerged into my life.

Beggar-I, in disguise of a student

Stretched my palms and placed before you.

Brimming the satchel of my brain,

Opening the curtain of ignorance,

You presented me before the world,

And escorted my entire dreams

Until this point where I stand

 To be:

 A better student,

A patriotic citizen,

 A good son,

And a responsible man.

In disguise of a teacher; O’ lord,

Blessing ignorant mundane world;

To measure your greatness

 I have no words.

To such efforts of yours,

To such blessings of yours;

I offer you my kudos with heart

Beyond time and distance,

Thank you, teachers!

Thank you teachers

How great teachers are, can be accessed through different praises that literature holds sacred until today and beyond.

A timeless Indian Edict goes: “Mata Pita Guru Devam”, translated as, mother, father, teacher and god-a sacred list of the most revered relationships in a strict order. First, comes, the mother (Mata), who gives birth to the child thereby bringing us as a child into the world. Next, comes, the father (Pita) because, it is the mother, who knows about the father points us towards   him. The mother and father, then, take us to the teacher (Guru) and it is through his/her teaching points us to the god (devam). A teacher, thus, stands at a higher stand, at a higher pedestal than the almighty omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and omnifarious.

Buddhism says, the ones who attained enlightenment after much struggle are the results of a teacher’s guide.

The bible says: “You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am”.

“It is easy to make a buck but is a lot tougher to make a difference”, says, Tom Brakaw. We stand today, like never before and as time passes by, we realize that we stand still longer than what we used to, yesterday. We are not the same person of yesterday, wearing attire of ignorance and surviving. Thus:

In desperate struggle for some words,

Hither and thither, I rushed,

Seeking what I ought to do,

And as I plunged my hands into the heart

I found some divine words to utter-

 “I thank you my teachers!

 Henry brooks Adams once said, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops”.  Across time and bound, I offer kudos to your profoundness and the influences you have brought in my life.

Thank you teachers.

Death shall come

I have not lived enough,

Perhaps I wish I was an immortal,

Like a bird soaring high,

Visiting each dreamed point,

Resting and testing its beauty.

Someday, all of a sudden,

When summons of death knocks me,

My soul shall walk towards it

And I shall be gone.

Many secrets are to be revealed,

Many oaths to be made

And many dreams to be dreamt,

Before death swallows my presence,

Before I fade into nothingness,

Yet when death comes like

And uninvited guest,

My life shall stop like

Stopping a pen on the comma or semicolon,

Never being able to reach the full stop.

I fear death, yet I talk of it

They say, a person who talks a lot of dying becomes dear one of the death soon. Perhaps, it is true. Perhaps it isn’t. I know everyone fears death and fears talking of it. I fear as well. At times just a mere thought of dying sends chills through my spinal chords yet I know nothing will stop us from being a slave of death. I fear, as I see someone die. I fear facing a dead body. I fear somebody talking of death, yet can these phenomena stop us from dying?

I wish i lived long. I wish my dreams were materialized and that I walked the path many successful souls on earth have walked. My parents who have brought me up, expended their life and sacrificed their comforts have dream about me. They think more about my future than I do. They are more concerned than I am. Perhaps will have a time to serve my parents the way I have planned for. Perhaps, like a fading ink in the midst of a sentence with a comma or a semicolon, our life might have to stop. Where the full stop is or the end of a sentence is, in our life, it is tough to find.

Sometimes as I lie down on the bed and lights are off, a big question mark blinks on my head. Will I survive the next day or will I not know I am dying then? I know our life has no guarantee and certainty is certainly absent as to when the death would drag us. I have dreams in my heart-some wild ones while some pleasing ones. I have a desire to be a man. I want to see the world better yet, who knows the secret plan of fate? I fear to close my eyes. It said that, at times what the open eyes don’t see, the closed ones do. I don’t know if I have seen death closely in life but when I close my eyes to sleep I certainly do visualize how it would be.

I fear the time when I might have to lie on the dead bed and go back in flashbacks. My dear parents, siblings, and relatives-will they be with me? Will I have a chance to die an easy death? That time when I will be suffering with  a pain of not being able to see the people I want to see, the things I have not achieved, I fear that my breathe will not stop easily. The unfinished dreams, unturned stones and the unmet people will hold the breath before it fades. I wish I died I death that won’t give a second to think of anything.