I still believe

I traverse the path, often stumbling to the ground, 

Not once, but recurrently,in ways profound. 

Yet, a force within rekindles my strength, 

To rise again and tower an immeasurable length. 

 

I cling to belief, an unwavering flame, 

In yearning's embrace, where dreams stake their claim. 

With unyielding effort, I forge ahead to earn, 

Aspirations on which my ambitions burn. 

And then all the stumbling seems like a pause, 

In there to test me, my belief and my cause. 

 

From shadows of fears, courage I distill, 

In sickness, I unravel the art of aging with skill. 

Amidst duties, I learn what distance is, 

In sorrow the quest for existence builds. 

I still believe, in yearning, I will find my way, 

Endeavors persist and dreams illuminate my day. 

With unyielding effort, I forge ahead to earn, 

Aspirations on which my ambitions burn.

I still meet her each day

I met her on the “other side of the street”. We were both crossing the road through the huge traffic of a Bangalore main road. She was just ahead of me. In a hurry I stepped on her sandals. She was just about to fall when I held her back and at the same time held the entire traffic to a screeching halt on that busy day in a very busy hour. Her sandals had broken and she was a little shaken if not hurt. I helped her cross the street, seated her on the pavement of a lazy shop that was not yet open and ensured she was fine before I could move on with my business of the day. But a glance at her and suddenly there was a sense of remorse if not guilt that arose in me. She looked like a daily wage earner whose valuable shoe piece I had just impaired. The faintest shades of gray colored her scanty hairline, she had a hunch so slight that it blurred my ability to classify her as able or disabled, she wore a bright orange and pink saree more like a modern midi skirt with a quarter of her skinny legs and hardened feet still visible and a blouse that could contain two times her. She had an oval face with skin a shade lighter than wheatish, beetel stained teeth that were like both present and absent, more like the roll call status in a local village school on a rainy day. I took her to the nearby cobbler who declared the sandals dead beyond repair. I hurriedly got her a new pair and set forth with my day leaving her behind while she kept on shouting “thank you thank you” for as long as she was audible. I rushed on towards the auto rickshaw stand. As always I was already late to work and had managed to miss my scheduled public transport and shelled out all the ready cash I had for her. The day has begun with a mess. From that day on I would notice her everyday crossing the streets with me and waiting at the same bus stop. We exchanged smiles. Slowly midst our waits for our respective buses she would talk to me. I am unsure if I could really call that a conversation for it was a one sided exchange. The rule was simple, she would talk and talk all through those ten to fifteen minutes wait and I would passively listen with a few intermittent smiles to reassure her that I was still listening. She always talked and talked and she talked of everything else but her present day and the immediate past. I had quite grown so used to her low pitched tales of yesteryear valor. But what drew me to her was that despite the seeming fragility I had seen in her the vigor to live in little ways. She would talk about her husband who owned a flock of auto-rickshaws, how he had grown from zilch to impressive, her son who owned a petite grocery shop, of the brisk sales there, of her innovative ideas that had helped his shop thrive, her daughter in law who would help all others in the family and her grandson in whom their soul lay. She would often mention the cutlets and curries her daughter in law made and dutifully served, the reverence her son held for her and how her grandson pampered her with hugs and kisses. She would never name her husband but just say how well he cared for her. I would habitually utter “You seem old, just rest. You have a nice family”. But she always said “I need a busy life. Why burden them when I can help.” Not long had passed and then one other similar day she seemed inquiringly quiet, dazed and dull as if in a trance. We exchanged just a wee smile and were just about to cross the street when she fell down with a earsplitting thud on the floor, like a strong log of stiffened and beaten wood that just once again lost its life. Everyone looked, a few waited and fewer still arched to lend a hand. We carried her to one side and sprinkled some water on her face. She took a while but recovered. By then sans me it was soliloquy for her again, the rest had left. I offered to call her husband, her son or her daughter in law. She denied and moved on quick and fast like nothing had happened just proclaiming aloud “I will straight head home. Do not worry!!” I am unsure what kind of concern seized me and compelled me to follow her silently. I just wanted to be sure she was safe. I pursued her down to her habitat and waited across the street. She knocked and out came an old man drunk and shuddering and shouting. He definitely was concerned but not for her but the days wage she had lost and had come back home so early. She hit her so hard that she fell back. And there I saw the truth of her life – she epitomized it then. Tired, crouching and crying she sat on. I just left the place unseen and unheard. I still meet her everyday and she still tells me her stories. But now, I listen to them more attentively. May be for her those moments are the little gateways to the life of her dreams.

A penny that I could spend on you..

Some people just have a way with words. They say the mundane, the obvious and the known. Yet the way they put it is so not the ordinary and the heard. During my B School days Gulzar had come down for a guest lecture. And between expressions he cited something, the thought of which makes me feel nostalgic even to this day.

 Don’t remember the lines but the thought goes thus:

Each morning the sunrise puts a penny in my little hands, a penny that the common mortal calls a day of life’s anecdote. Each day the penny gets wasted sometime unspent, sometimes wasted, mostly hurried, mostly busy and at other times threadbare. Sometimes it is mundane, sometimes wearied, habitually demanding and always crowded. My penny goes wasted; things that I dream of and are close to gratis remain still not owned or bought.

Someday I hope my wish comes true, all I wish for is a penny, a day that I could spend just on you.

And My Earth Shook..

Has been a really long time since I last scribbled something on the net. Started my blog-page with a lot of enthusiasm. This I guess will be the case for most of the first time bloggers. However then got busy with the 'busy'ness of life and lost touch of things somewhere midway.

A few days in the past something happened which actually made me consider making a memento out of those handful of moments and post it somewhere, where I could share it with a larger clan – a much larger tribe that shares most of the elements that comprise me and is a part of the same rat race that I too run and survive.

Life has weird and wonderful rules. It gives us a lot to choose from. It lets us choose those zillion ticks of time when we so comfortably immune ourselves from all the deep delving on the true verve that constitutes living. We concrete mortals, then, engage ourselves in the more mundane and daily and, yes definitely, the arguably more obligatory. And then suddenly comes that one moment, when life just happens to us devoid of any choice. And worst of all that moment is so enviably powered to break and undo all rules and possessions that we otherwise so vehemently safeguard.

A habitual late to bed person, I had just crept into my bed. It was more than two months since I had been in Jakarta with my husband and yet all of it seemed just like yesterday, time seemed to have just flown by. This again I presume is the case with most newly married couples. I lay down staring at the clock, engrossed in yet one more of those umpteen soliloquies on life. The minute hand of the night clock seemed to lazily crawl to keep pace with its ‘second’ counterpart. It must have been something close to 10 minutes past midnight when I felt the bed trembling. Given the uncommonness of the shivers I woke my husband up, who tired from the day’s occupation was already snoring. Both of us got down onto the floor. Initially dazed, then thoughtful, then anxious and then alarmed he shouted, “ It’s an earthquake “. Panicky with the realization, that we were witnessing an earthquake of quite a magnitude at the 32nd floor of our 39 storeys Service Apartment complex, we moved fast. Our reflex action – grabbed our passports that lay on the table and hand in hand hurried towards the lift. While he kept pressing the lift buttons I watched on helplessly as the floor beneath me shook. Along with us were two others from the house next to ours who were equally disconcerted. The lift arrived and there was barely room for four. We took the lift down. That day it stopped at almost every floor, as there are 3 lifts for roughly 160 apartments in the complex. One could witness desperation on the faces of people who waited for the lift at the floors below when they saw a fully occupied lift and then ran in panicky towards the stairway. All kinds of what ifs visited my psyche in those fifty seconds – yes FIFTY SECONDS, it no longer seemed to me as ‘less than a minute’. I kept wondering ‘What if the cable of the lift snapped’ and yet we could not risk running down 30 floors. I hoped and prayed that the quake stopped before the building succumbed. I could well hear the sound of cracking concrete and the shouts and screams of people running down. I could imagine the pregnant and the elderly and the helplessness that would now be surrounding them. But overwhelmed and stunned faces in that 3by3ft lift was all of the earth that I could now see and that I now shared. I held my husband close – to be as tightly clung to him as possible was all I wanted now, whatever be the outcome, in that instance of time that was ALL that I wanted. The lift was shaking and then suddenly the tremors stopped. By the time we were down at the lobby the quake had closed. Honestly it felt like rebirth - actually it felt much more than anything I could conceive under normal circumstances.

Now I could see all residents down on the streets, all in their bare minimums. The street in front was today more busy with noises than people. Amidst hurried walks people were informing their families back home of the escape, thanks to mobile telephony. Everyone was a bit shaken and feared a quick return to their residence in dread of an aftershock. All stood there discussing and waiting. Soon enough we had people discussing how safe each ones exit strategy had been, who had been the smartest and who was the dumbest of all. People started asking each other for cigarettes. Some had even managed to run down with their beer bottles and were benevolent enough to share a gulp or two with others. Gradually normalcy crept back.

Slowly, in about two hours or so, as the tension receded and smiles started finding room on the faces again, people started walking back. We too hand in hand started walking back home smiling and sharing amid us an undeclared happiness. The place that had threatened sedating our life itself was now again home for us.

And all along that return route all that I kept thinking was - how little we need when the dire beckons and how much we want when it does not. When death comes it bangs without an appointment or a schedule. You never know what lies for you round the next cross. So when walking the streets of life please smile – you never know how long it is destined to last.

With that I remain.
Till my next post happy aspirations and happy walking :)




PS: The report of the quake on CNN can be found at the link
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/08/indonesia.quake/index.html