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.

A summons for death

Perhaps we forget that death will come to us like a hunter riding a horse and gallop away taking us on with it. Perhaps we don’t want to remember that we must die one day or the other. No matter what, death shall come in disguise and abduct us faraway, millions of hills back. Like the replication of vampires and the zombies, death will have been searching us everywhere, every time. Sometimes concealing in the depth of opportunities; sometimes flowing from the smile and sometimes as an adversity, death shall come.

The greatest philosopher Socrates wrote, “The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows”. One day we bid farewell to the world we have loved to stay, living behind our family, property and the worldly materials. Like a trail of our legs, we fade from the heart of mortals as time passes by and nothing but history remains untold. Whether it is good that we are dying or it is bad that we are living, no one but god knows it.

We don’t want to die yet have to die. “We have no armour against fate” as the great poet James Shriley writes in his poem, Death the Leveler. No matter how strong, how fit we are, we are ultimately the subjects of death. Sick or healthy; giant or tiny; black or white; King or peasant; male or female; Happy or sad-everyone shall be treated equally. “From soil we came and to the soil we return”, as bible unfolds.

 The great Nepalese writer and poet Dr Krishna Hari Baral writes  on death ,which can be translated very roughly as :

“No one has a desire to die,

Yet there isn’t a moment

That slips off without our death.

No matter where we escape,

There isn’t a place mortals won’t die”.

Every minute I am reminded of death, I get a chill run over my spinal cord raising my heartbeats. As I lie on the bed late night, a sad gust of feeling stir my mind and shakes my life. I imagine the times in future when we are on the verge of closing the eyes and squeeze out every molecule of oxygen, how suffocations will prevent us from uttering the words we desire. We will have our near and dear ones sobbing and mourning; some people not even believing we are summoned by death. “Nothing will happen to you, my dear. We will not let you die”. These are the soothing words those loved ones will speak. They give us a new desire to live. We wish, then, we never died. It is at that time we remember millions of things in short time that we might not have been able to remember in our entire life. When we see those healthy ones witnessing as we breathe last; we wish we were once again alive. There will be dreams, hopes and desires that remain raw and unfulfilled. There will be people we would love to meet for the last time yet as fate desires, so shall it be. We die but with a desire to live long.

No one likes to leave the one who have given us so many things to remember. Sometime I wish we could also say like the people living, “We will always remember you”. Of what good will that serve? Wheteher the dead ones are remembered or forgotten what difference will that make? I wish when we on the dead bed, we could say, “don’t worry, I will be back soon with lots of eatables. Until then take good care of yourselves”.

My only concern about death is whether I will be able to see my parents and loved ones when I breathe my last and I wish I could say, “I will be back soon”. As I think of that day, tears fall off and I suffocate. I am afraid of death. I want to live as long as I wish to.

Ode to the parents

It is a dream of every parent to have one’s son live upto one’s expectations. Since the time we were born to them as an innocent baby to this day as a grown up man with beards and moustache, their dreams have been tickling them. When we were just toddlers, they have saved us from getting into the fire. They have saved us from hurting with knives or bruising the knees by a stone. Holding our hands along the footpath and the terraces of the paddy fields, they have taught us to walk. When we stared at them while chewing corns or fruits, they have shared it with us. The time we uttered some alien words, they have hoped with joys, smiled with delight and taught us further with sweetness.

Then, time came for us to get enrolled into the school. They have fought hard to get us enrolled in the schools. Running through headmaster to the Gup and to the Home ministry, they helped us stand among those privileged ones. They have helped us stand on the same queue the privileged ones stood. From Preprimary standard to until today, until this time many things have changed yet the love of our parents haven’t. We are grown up today with our own ability to survive through life. We have become capable to walk alone. We have grown big, infact bigger than what everyone expects. We have forgotten how we were brought up. We now take things for granted that whatever we are today is just what had to happen.

This is the time we forget where we have come from. We forget to take ourselves in thought where we have come from. We don’t even bother to look back how we have been able to come this far. Time flies swiftly and we are indulged in the present so much that we hardly remember to recollect the past. Were we to be such damn idiot to forget how tough things were to help us grow, I suppose we never grew.

Who cares to make a call to the parents even once a week? Are we so busy that we can’t even steal a second to ask about the health of our parents? Or is it that we have become bother less about them? If we wish to call, there is time when we go to toilet; there is a possibility to call when we go to kitchen; there is time to call when we walk. We have times for facebook, twitter, Gmail, Skype and so on, yet we say we have no time. Is it for that we have been brought up?

There are some of us who has enough balance to call lovers, yet have nothing to give a missed call. We have times to write poem about the lovers yet we have no words to describe our parents. Our time to think about life had come. We choose partners who parents think should not have been chosen. We think our parents have no say on it but we are forgetting that this is not what parents want out of us. There is a virtue in listening to the parents on what they recommend us. We may make ourselves the happiest person with our choice but we won’t rest in peace after we die. Each drop of tear that fall from their eye will have to be paid back. If we go against the will of our parents, no one can stop us from going to hell. This isn’t what we have been brought up for. We have responsibility to be a responsible sons and daughters of our parents.