a dosa...no no idli..... no no.... Dosa

How often does a situation arise when u have your toes in you mouth. Often, seldom or never?
For those who have faced such situations rarely, add Sarah to your list. 

It was a friday, and she was full of energy as it is the last working day of the week. Soon after  settling at her work-desk, she was told to brush through some documents for the test. The team was asked to collect in the conference room and started their training. From 10:30 to 2 o clock, they had all the gyan given to them about instructional designing. Sarah was happy having learnt a great deal about the subject. It was like getting a degree, but the grumbling stomach interrupted Sarah's happiness. 

She came out of conference  room, ordered for a dosa...no no then changed it to a plate of idli. CEO asked her manager for a dosa. Sarah'

s manager called the office boy, asked for two plates dosas. Over!

Is it...No.

Dosa arrived, Sarah got her change back and vroomed into the lunch room, gulped the dosa down her throat and came out. 

"Did the office boy get my lunch?", asked CEO. Sarah's manager had no clue....with half dosa on his work desk and half already in his stomach. 

"You ate his dosa...you had ordered for idli naaa", told Sarh's colleague to her. <<<<<<<<" I gave him a 100 rupee note, told him to get dosa. By the time he reached my manager's workdesk, i told him to get idli instead.

He came to my desk, gave me a dosa packet and 84 rupees", recalled Sarah

That is how she saw the event. 

Sarah felt she was getting choked. Gosh!! did i eat my boss' lunch. Damn it!! no way...the office boy forgot to get my idli...and he thought the manager asked for two dosas: one for himself and one for me. 

But, where is the idli then??.....

This was the first time Sarah had eaten lunch in such a hurry, and in the lunch room, sitting all alone in dark. And trust me, she looked like a thief, eating other person's lunch. God damn her, that other person was not a colleague but her CEO. Poor lady was feeling so lost and was jumping all over the office, assuring herself that the dosa was hers.

How would you feel if same happens to you someday? Am sure it would be somewhere similar to what Sarah felt like...

yet again...

No one knows what is Sarah’s complaint? But, I know it happens. You wish that God would send positive signals to you, when you know it is the best thing that can ever happen to you. Instead, you get something unexpected…

Who knew life would ever take such a drastic turn. All the happy days would become teasers. Sarah never thought she would fail yet again. She was sure the henna on her hands would mark the beginning of her new life. But before it could dry and give her the sense of never ending happiness, things went astray. Even before she could go and choose the colour for curtains of her newly bought home, her eyes had failed to search for any colour.

“Sarah..Sarah..honey. pass me that tumbler”, she could still hear the voice from the other room. She would go running inside the room with a whole jug of water and pour the water bottoms-up on him. And then, there would be pillow fights, the real bad ones.

He would never fail to take revenge and will return to room with a bucket full of water, ready to dampen all the furniture in the room. She had to board the flight next morning and was pleading him not to throw water on gifts she had picked up for family. They were to be together forever after she returns from delhi. Shitt! Man… u spoiled my laptop. Buy me a viao now..huh!, she screamed.

“So, what will you cook when I am gone?”

Hmmm..i will have momos every day….he said, not knowing how painful would be the jealous pinch this time.

Every office has it own rules. His office commanded that mobiles be on silent mode during working hours.

12 missed calls!! “f ****! I missed it. She will be angry. Hope she dint buy bright blue coloured curtains. She should have sent me a text atleast. God… help me. I will tell her I had a meeting with a client.”

“What if I die in a boom? What will you do?”, he still remembered her silly questions.

It was 14^th September when serial blasts happened in Delhi. She was eating her ever lovely puchkaas and the blast sent off a piece of heavy iron piece right into her leg. The first thing she could think of was to call him.

Another boom! a few meters away made everything dark in front of her. She could still hear the call going in the loudspeaker mode. She screamed… hoping some one would reply.

This was one of those times she had hoped that God would help.

Sometimes, when we see our prayers fail, we go into a state of silence and madness or higher sanity, as i call it. Sarah had taken refuge into the same mode. She has refused to recognise anyone. Her silence raises a question to heaven upward. What question? What happened to her?

Across a road...

I walk across a road,
The road has markings in blood,
There is a crowd walking with me,
The crowd is silent, with veins around their mouths,
Their teeth send a ripple of fear down my spine,
Their breath smells of blood and dark fears,

I scream for answers with questions in my head,
I see the death all around me echoing,
The dark clouds stare at me and smile,
The rain is pitiless and burns my sore feet,

I give a last try and scream for answer
And a voice says, " Cut cut!..good shot...we will go with this one"

Me, Mine, Myself part of life...

No creature in the world can compete with humans when it comes to calling something 'mine'. Even a small child is taught to call toys his own and at the same time he is taught to learn sharing. Poor child takes years to understand what his elders meant and by the time he learns sharing, he is grown too big to even tell his dad that he has a girlfriend.

A friend of mine decided to start a blog where four of people would be writing and sharing our ideas. It died down in a flick of time and he went mad, when we all started asking him how to differentiate between 'our personal' blog and 'shared blog. We all felt threatened by the public nature of it. And, thus the decision was taken to bury the idea and carry on with our personal blogs.

It was not only this, it was basically our failure to identify our writings as personal, creative and thoughts. Frankly speaking, all of it is personal as far as it comes from one individual....and if one writes it on the blog then nothing is private!

But yes, it does give a good feeling to know that we have a space where only 'i' write (even if it is once in six months). Same is the case with our lives. We love to know that we have a life, even if we are wasting it. Inspite of being taught several times the concept of 'sharing' , we go on living our own way with indifferent nature ever increasing.

The net result is....no matter how liberal minded we are...we do want to live in our own little compartment, in our own way...and yes no sharing!

'Your mind is like a parachute. It only works if it is open' --Anthony J. D΄Angelo

It takes us only a few moments to develop a perception about each and everything around us. And then, it is so tough to change it or even bend it a little. This is how radicals work. I was always amused by radicals, but now seem to be realising that they are dangerous not to themselves but to those who lend ears to them. They box our brains to such an extent that we echo only what we hear from them. In that case, they must be called bullies. Be it friends, profesors, politicians or religeous leaders, one need not be so influenced by them that there is no space left for alternative thinking.

An overall look at a thing is always better and gives us the wholesome idea. But a limited view and strongly holding on to that limited knowledge is definitely dangerous for us.

I believe, more than anyhting it is very very and very very important to have an alternative thinking before we develop a strong idea. Half of the actions and reactions by us will be calmer and patient, if we get into the habit of alternative thinking.

We need to do our part of research before we agree to the masters of a school of thought. Why to be a copycat, when we can open our parachute and glide the way we want to.

Just to make the brain numb, we make communites and states and live like 'a community'. Its high time that we disjoint ourselves from such labels and live as 'individual' and re-think what we never lend a thought to.

Hell breaks loose

Hell breaks loose, the rivers are a stream of thick blood
I stand on stones near riverside,
They are the skulls of young ones.

The land shakes with fear,
The wind screams to the heaven,
I stand alone in middle of barren land,
Far away i see a caravan

With bare feet, i crawl upto them
To my shock, they are all torn faces with blood clots
I see inside their eye sockets

To my fear, I see the holy ghost
Telling me: " Dont mistake theeself as a poorman for thee has just seen the paradise on earth, Kashmir! "

____________________________________________________________________
This is what comes to my mind, when i try to visualise the valley. The so-called paradise has become hell and is haunted by the cries of innocent who die innocent deaths each day.

i wish i was a punk rocker with the flowers in my hair....

How often do we think that we should have been born in some other era, some other place and as someone else. With innocent people dying unwanted death, questions echo in my brain. Am i right for the occasion? Am i capable of bringing any stop to the blooshed? Am i born at the wrong time when the whole world is going into flames?

The answer is simple...There is never a right or wrong time. It all depends on us. It is 'i' who has to take a call and make the change happen. One always has choices, even in case of what is predestined, a human has choices to make and take path they wish to.

The other day, i told a friend how i wished i was there during the of partition of India. I always felt that i am strong and could have pulled through strongly with all those times and would have made a difference that time.

But alas! poor me....my country men die each day for no reason ..and i sit safe with four walls around me, T.V switched off not willing to spare even five minutes to the breaking news...

Such is the tragedy of being human...we know the meaninglessness of our life once we have an option to make choices and make the most cowardly choice....a choice that neither brings happiness to us and nor to others.

To err is to be human...and we all err by falling in the trap of believing that we can make a stir in the world.....but the world and its miseries go on increasing like never before..

Women in War

Women are serving in record numbers in the Iraq war, but the public seldom sees their faces or hears their stories.

Women and the issues they face as a consequence of deployment tend to be invisible, said Moni Law, civil rights lawyer turned film producer, who would watch news of the war and ask herself, "What about the women?"

Of those serving in the military today, one in seven are women, she said. So far, more than 160,000 women have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 80 have died in the conflicts. Many thousands more are mothers and wives who are grieving dead soldiers, or caring for those who return physically or psychologically scarred. And an even greater number of Iraqi women have been displaced, tortured, raped or killed in the war.

Law's question about the female experience of war drove her to help produce a documentary highlighting women's voices.

The documentary, "Female Faces of War," made by Seattle filmmaker Kiya Bodding in conjunction with Law, debuted Tuesday night at the Seattle Art Museum during a public forum examining women's issues related to the war in Iraq. The forum was presented by King County Washington Women Lawyers.

"Iraq is unlike any previous war," Law said. In previous conflicts, women had non-combat roles. But in Iraq, they are dying alongside male soldiers, and they are exposed along with men to the same conditions that produce post-traumatic stress symptoms when they return.

In addition, an estimated 70 percent of military women experience sexual harassment or assault during their service, she said. Military sexual trauma tends to be underreported and undertreated, said Sara Rich, whose daughter, Suzanne Swift, was raped in the military and subsequently court-martialed for refusing to redeploy. That experience thrust both of them into the national spotlight, and Rich has been outspoken about the need to change a military culture that she said cultivates an environment that allows such sexual assaults to persist.

Rich appeared on a panel at the screening, along with female veterans, counselors and advocates for veteran support services.

Several counselors who deal with female veterans said they are seeing emotional and behavioral issues similar to those in male veterans, especially as lengths and numbers of deployments increase.

The increase in domestic violence among male veterans is better known, but domestic violence episodes involving women have also increased, said Tracy Simpson, co-director of the Women's Trauma and Recovery Center at VA Puget Sound. Women face many of the same anger issues that their male counterparts face when they return, she said.

Other panelists highlighted the challenges faced by families, many of which were largely unprepared emotionally and financially for long stretches of deployment.

The "culture of toughness" in the military prevents many women from seeking help, said Lourdes Alvarado-Ramos, deputy director for the Washington state Department of Veterans Affairs.

Panelists said solutions involve better educating women about their options and resources in reporting sexual abuse, and in seeking help for their problems. They also called for tougher consequences for sexual assault in the military.

The post is an excerpt from YWCA member,By CAROL SMITH; and can be reached at: 206-448-8070 or carolsmith@seattlepi.com.

Torn Sky

I carried the raindrops in my eyes,
I carried my dreams in a bubbble.
I made home out of cobwebs that flew with wind.

Love came and made everything strong for me,
it went away and tore way my sky.
All the stars fell on me and burnt my eyes.
Now, i walk like a widow with a torn veil,
but my head is still held high.

I am the lover who loves with pride.

Flights of Fantasy

No matter how sure we are and no matter how perfect things go on in our life, there are times when our imagination just can’t be held back from racing towards those unhappy mishaps, which have not yet occurred in our lives. Our imagination takes us off to that unknown world where even the near and dear ones become strangers and do acts that are unpredictable.

Yes, I am talking about those times of the day when we slip behind a curtain and imagine ourselves as the victims or culprits in the fantasy world. From here arise the doubts, suspicions and jealousies….but ahem! This is also the perfect content for a writer to write on or about.

Something similar happened to me, sitting next to the window, flying back to home, I started imagining weird stuff. I could not hold back, and started to write about it. As a student I often used to slip into this fantasy world and imagine myself flunking in a paper or two, or failing to finish my masters’ degree. As a result, I used to panic for no reason, get tensed for nothing. Hats off to those which have the capacity to live in this fantasy world because I am, at this young age available with diabetic symptoms.

For a thoughtful person like me, it is very important to visit fantasy land for it defines our ‘mood for the day’. At times I take revenge in my world with my friends, which in a way stops me to go on n punish them in the real world. But one needs to put a halt before we go too violent and see ourselves committing horrendous crimes.

Once...

Once in thousand decades, once in thousand years, once in thousand lifetimes,

Does one come into this world to see what lies in front of us in this world?

All one needs to do is, decide n capture what one likes…..

Alas! Even though we get all we aspire for, we die n leave all back here.

This is the magic of vicious-circle we are all trapped in, but how many of us actually want to take on to the life without ambitions…?

We all…look for the soul that feels the same…that has the same peace which we want to attain.

Truly, at least I believe, someone somewhere is made for us, who carries the soul similar to ours…n we see a friend in that frame.

The sack of gold.

The sack of gold.

Standing by the door, i see the passing moments on the road.
It is these moments that I cherish most.
Those were the golden days of my existence,
Thoughiexist even now, but ti is only the substance.
You were the essence, to cure to my miseries.

They say i have grown up, but still I cry,
still remember days in your lap, when u would calm me down,
and take me around to show the town.
Was it the child in me you tended or was it
The love you sowed in me?

I walk around like a sack that carried
The gold grains once upon a time,
But surely i walk with pride,
since i have been touched by gold.