THE CIVIL WAR

With a pair of kohl-rimmed eyes and a smile in them, she stares at him sometimes. The language those eyes speak is so profound that he finds it difficult to gauge the depth in them. Every time she nods her head in agreement while looking at the floor and being inclined to his words synchronously, he feels a winning moment. And then she smiles looking at him. That bright smile makes him see sunshine all around. It is at that moment that he feels drenched in happiness.

But what more does he see? He sees another familiar face smiling at him with the vigour and energy of a child calling him #Sexy. He blushes to the core. Seeing that she laughs like a child. The enthusiasm she carries creates an aura of innocence exactly like a child…high and transparent like a clear running stream. She is like a radiating flower which he fears if he touches, may tarnish the glow. He loves spending time with her. She cares but the problem is how does he infer that he is someone exclusive to her. She does that to everyone. She is a pure soul. How to make his share in her psychology is a question which haunts him.

Damn! He is so confused, by a dilemma. After hearing all of it, I just say “Tum apna prashna leke kaal ke paas jio mitra…. who tamari sahaita awash karenge”. And then I had to survive a fatal attack. Man! Ashiqs are dangerous!!!

                                          

DOWN THE MEMORY LANE: SOME BRUISES

There he was sitting, as if he had just woke up……feeling a little dizzy. He was glad he could get a seat because he was tired. He felt weak. He looked around. He saw people with their family members, people on wheelchairs with expressionless faces. He saw the big queue in which his dad was standing. He frowned to read the board displayed on the counter. It said ‘Appointments for MRI scans, CT scans, USGs and X-rays’.

The queue was long. Suddenly a thought pinched him. It was a realization about his dad. That it was this man who had been there to catch him or pull him up every time he fell. He felt deluged with gratefulness with an intensity never felt before. After about one hour his dad came and said, “Let’s go”. He then followed his dad. On the way he gazed around so inquisitively, not just because the place was new to him but also because he was trying really hard to understand the place, its geography, its functional divisions, all cognitively. He saw his report which said ‘Minor head injury’ with medical terms like hematoma, contusion and hemorrhage. He folded them back as he didn’t get much of it.

After the normal physician checks and some cognitive tests by the neurologist, he met a lady named Jenefer Rose who happened to be his therapist. He found her attitude genuinely friendly, without any tint of diplomacy. She gave him a paper which was something like a question paper. He read (with effort of course). The paper had questions like: Which is your favorite color? What are you pursuing academically? There were options given to tick. He ticked the ones which his injured mind could best procure on the benchmark of correctness. The last question was to write a sentence in English. He wrote ‘I want to get well at the earliest’. Jenefer read that sentence aloud as her eyebrows rose with hope and care. (She was giving him similar looks that Aamir Khan gave Darsheel Safary in Taare Zameen Pe). After that she asked him, “How are you feeling now?” He raised his eyebrows in frustration and replied with pauses “I wanted to do a creative writing course. And now I have to hunt for words to even express myself, how would I feel”. She was silent for a moment. Then she said “Come”. She took him to a ward adjacent to the occupational therapy ward where she spoke very warmly to a boy (of about 10 years). The boy was lying down in ventilation with oxygen pipes, food pipes all attached to him. She told him what had happened to the boy. The boy was happily cycling back home when he meet with an accident with a car and injured his spine and brain. With the spine and brain injuries, he couldn’t move his legs nor could he speak. He had to be feed via the pipes. She turned to him and said “Now you should feel lucky”. He stared back while he was trying to feel the depth of her words. She took him back to the occupational therapy ward and gave him a simple puzzle to solve. He grabbed it. He was determined. He found speed and accuracy hard to bring to a common platform. He was slow, yet further slowed down. He finally solved it but found his bile rising up his throat at his inability to solve it at the wink of an eye. He literally had to slog for it. Then she asked him to do something like a cat walk, i.e. walk on a single continuous line longitudinally with subsequent steps touching each other. He again started with determination but soon tripped off due to his disturbed muscular co-ordination. That moment he felt the pain of a hundred knives daggered to him. But what was strange was he smiled sarcastically as if he was smiling at his present, what life had brought him. And then his facial expression became intense and his body language became stiff. Seeing this Jenefer said “It seems like you want to say a lot of things but you are not able to”. He closed his eyes and tried to swallow the agony. She understood the pain. She said “Do how much ever you can….Leave the rest……But don’t give up…..Don’t panic, stay calm”. He nodded affirmatively.

 That was a day in his life.   And that day is reminded every time he hears any incidence of any injury leading to hospitalization, especially of the CPU (head). He and his cool life style are brought to a halt, dragged into awkward moments of time dilution, make him go back into these moments (powerful flashbacks of his past) and he has no control over them. But there is some meaning to them too. They teach him how precious life is and how blessed we “normal” people are.

THE CRUSADE

How long is it possible for a charged body to remain charged in an uncharged ambience? How long can something hold its aroma in a place which is continuously draining it? How long is it possible to swim against the water current? How long is it possible to climb uphill? After a brief gallant show of guts and determination, finally a thought comes in the mind “I can’t do it anymore. Let it go!” It is here that our 100% terminates. And we start going with the current spontaneously. But spontaneous processes lead to the increase in disorderedness of the system.

We humans are basically lazy, very lazy. And some of us are extraordinary in this. They love pain, darkness, gloominess. (One thing did you ever realize, why do people like sunset more than sunrise? Think over it). Why would anyone love pain? Think deep. The reason is simple. To be positive (uphill) requires a lot of energy whereas to be negative requires none (downhill). Let me explain with an example by personifying someone. ‘X’ is say a boy. He is fat. Daily he looks into the mirror and sees those extra pounds here and there, and then he feels the bile rising in his throat. But still he finds hundreds of reasons to eclipse his ‘laziness to take responsibility’ (take control of the steering of his life) to correct that or even make an attempt (whole- hearted one). He lives gloomily over the silliest and stupidest of problems. He magnifies them and may be because he wants care and affection, he shows himself bruised by life. See the cleverness of the mind; first it convinces X of the illusion because it knows that if the person himself is not convinced he cannot convince the world around him. He attempts it. But people around are busy crying theirs. He amplifies his intensities. Now his actions scream, “I am hurt, I am bruised by life. Adore me, love me”. Finally people start noticing and out of pity show some sympathy which he mistakes for affection. He is happy with it. He starts saying in a tone of infinite experience, “Life is an acid-test; life is not a bed of roses; life is an ever-lasting struggle…..and so on”. If given power he might even put out the sun saying the sunlight hurts the eyes too much. He speaks often about the glory of his past and how suffocating his present is. He speaks of his dead wishes and more about the power and role of Fate is making them dead. He speaks about his compulsions and restrictions. His ‘things I don’t-like’ list is ever ready. He is exceptionally clear about what he doesn’t want in life. But he is blank (or takes hell lot of time to say) when asked about the things he wants in life. You may often hear him saying “I can’t do this” or “I can do this but I don’t want to do this” (of course here I am talking about good habits and hobbies). These kinds of people are energy drainers. They are hopeless and will be hopeless forever. Next time you see someone like this around, do yourself a favor; kick him away from your life. Else he is going to drain your hopes and energy and drown you in darkness, subconsciously.

Life is beautiful. If you doubt the statement, go and talk to someone who is on deathbed especially by any injury or disease. Look in their eyes and you will know the importance of life. Talk to someone who is handicapped, you will realize how lucky you are and how you took your life for granted so far. Speaking of problems I will say these are real problems like ‘parents on the verge of divorce, loss of a close one like a family member, family financial problems, bad family relationships etc’. In these cases you need a hug by close ones. Other problems are not big enough to upset you that much. Live your life. Fulfill your desires because who knows will there be a tomorrow or not.

So the answer to the initial set of questions (beginning of this post) is infinity. Yeah it is possible till you breathe your last breath, because it is expression of an attitude and attitude don’t get tired. Whenever you get tired take a break but don’t quit. Because if you quit you lose this battle and ultimately the crusade of your life. 

A NOT-SO-ORDINARY THURSDAY MORNING

Well July21, 2011 was another a-little-EXTRA-ordinary day in my life. There was action, emotion and off course a dab of drama all blended to perfection. I had fainted in a blood group test in our cell biology laboratory. I generally have a horrible time in situations with needles and blood, especially when you have to pierce yourself (this reminds me only and only of the Saw series). Still when I recall the first sensation when my mind realized that it was put in a situation in which it had to confront its greatest fear, a chill runs down my spine.

When I walked in the lab I was totally unaware of the fact that the next 20 minutes that were going to change the day’s peaceful morning into turmoil. I had come to a crunch when the teacher said the practical’s name. My mind was totally horrified when the teacher announced that the practical of the day was a blood group test. I had faced a similar situation in standard 12^th when we had this practical. But with time fears had deepened. They had become grave.  I was feeling the turmoil inside me. Meanwhile my mind had started its procedure of an instant power cut. While the teacher was explaining blood groups, I was fighting the worst enemy I have ever met, my own mind, which had totally succumbed to its fear. The silence was the strangest thing. Round me the morning continued; teachers teaching, students attending classes, ‘akkas and annas’ running placidly about their business….. But to me all had shrunk to the dimensions of the lab, the people in it and myself engaged in my soundless struggle, plunged and reared enormous.

 I could feel the power fading in my cerebral township. I breathed hard and deep, tightened my fist with all my strength to pump up the power supply but of no use. I grinded my jaws together (in order to defy my mind’s proceedings). I was already running on an emergency back-up power. But the mind was powerful. Fighting some 30 billion neurons, bewitched in their own over-whelming fear, is not that easy. Just like an entire city’s myriad and intricate systems like the transport system, the sophisticated communications setup, etc., are plunged into darkness by a single power outage, my whole conscious network of high nerve centers stopped. And I was dragged into darkness.  I even did not realize when my shutters had closed. I had fainted. In my state of unconsciousness I felt like the struggle and anxiety and everything was just a dream. In the dream the battle continued. Here, it seemed that the dream was the reality and the reality the dream. But as it is said that sooner or later though we all have to wake up, I regained consciousness. As the power supply returned the blur vision cleared and I could see some faces glaring at me so inquisitively as if I was some alien creature and that my spaceship had crashed in their locality. But our lab teacher was smiling. His smile was like the one portrayed by the actor who played the role of Shree Krishna in Mahabharata. He was as cool as a cucumber. I faintly murmured him that I wasn’t okay with this experiment and I wanted to go to my hostel, looking apologetically at him as his class was held because of me. When my motor reflexes got a little stronger I got up and walked out the lab. I was a little toddling but I was greatly relieved that I escaped out of the room which then seemed to me no less than a dungeon and I was put to test similar to that in which ‘Jigsaw’ puts people (you have to cut yourself, bleed in order to live). It had similar elements of violence and psychological disturbance. I stood uncertainly for a moment detaching myself from the scene, from the morning, from the malignantly smiling teacher.

Consequently I hit the headlines that day in my department. Well to be true, I would say it was one of the embarrassing days of my life. As Preeti Shenoy in her book ’34 bubblegums and candies’ says that life is sometimes like a candy, sweet and tasty, but it is also sometimes like a bubblegum which you chew and chew, and the bubble you blow bursts out unexpectedly and you are left with a sticky mess, I have realized that people are too busy minding their own lives than to bother laughing at you. And hence I treat it like yesterday’s newspaper.

THE ANATOMY OF LOVE

Love love love tum karo…

Love se na tum daro…

The song from the movie ‘Ishq Vishq’ is just an example of the numerous songs of Hindi movies which have complicated our lives. And I believe Shah Rukh Khan has confused a generation with his characters Raj or Rahul. Yet perceptions about love vary a lot among people. “Love is an unspoken promise that two hearts live forever” says Neetu Mittal. Sanchit Aggarwal has a different point of view, “Love is good till you are blind… I guess love doesn’t exist in the real world”. While Rishav Kumar says “Love is something which sets your mind, heart and soul on fire, be it for anything”. Vivek Ojha says”Love is when your wants turns into your needs”.

Well some studies also say that. Some prefer to keep silent on this topic. But love takes over, even the silent. It is true that when you meet your special person, new love cuts you off from family and friends and prompts out-of-character behavior -compulsive phone calling and yelling from rooftops. The trends are many. Being in a relationship is a trend, whether the person is ready for it or not. It is something like atoms become stable only when they form molecules. Being single is not cool. There it creates a deep pressure to fall in love. The situation is like you go to a shopping- mall and pick up a t-shirt just because friends are doing so, not thinking even once whether you need it or not. Or it can be better understood by the FFCS course registrations of our university. You have to choose the best among those available. There is a rush too as the good ones are being booked with time passing (I would here blame those who disturbed the sex ratio).

So, pumped up by all this, X (a boy) proposes Y (a girl). Y first hesitates considering the gravity of her social image, takes time to ponder and finally accepts. And then her FB status changes from ‘single’ to ‘in a relationship’- 79 people like this. And she thinks ‘Damn! I missed 80 by one.’ Both X and Y feel the bubbles inside them (even if the bubbles are due to gastric indigestion) and life is so colorful and rosy for them. Then slowly the thorns are visible in the roses. Arguments and quarrels become a part of their ‘dinchariya’.  They fight for the silliest of reasons. And then after the whole day of showing anger, X tries to coax Y on the phone. But Y is too angry today and she slams the call. X gets frustrated and then the victims are generally the mobile phones or the mirrors and innocent sleeping room-mates. Finally a Samaritan comes to their rescue and settles their matter. And then things are back to normal. Again they talk long hours on the phone till the crack of dawn on important matters like how many chapattis they ate that day. Gradually things change with the age of their relation and the colors seem to fade. They also change slowly but they themselves cannot accept the changes of each other. The intensity of the fights grows with passing time and one day Y exclaims, ‘I don’t think it’s working any more’. X pretends to be shocked (feeling the same inside; may be last night after their quarrel a wise friend had kicked some sense into him that all this while he was over-doing things). So as their hangover of love fades, they decide to break apart. The MAGIC love turns TRAGIC. And then after the sad healing period, their cycles are repeated (the cupid strikes again). This is the general trend.

Now let us go to the basics of why people jump into relationships. The first reason I find may be the fear of segregation. People follow trends out of a fear to be left alone (whether they like it or not). And hence people swing it the direction of the wind. The second may be the speed factor. Life has become fast and speed is worshipped here (even more than accuracy, I guess). Hence people are not ready to wait for the right person. The third reason may be the excitement of the future. It is human psychology that the next phase of life always appears to be more thrilling than the current one. It is like your plans for the next semester. Life would be great if you focus on the current one. As a result, people enter a premature ‘grihastha’ stage of life. Remember pre-maturation is always a case of abnormality in biology. Become ‘family people’ only when you think you are ready. A serious reason may be some have poor family relations. Their cups are empty. The last reason is the most serious and it is the biochemistry of hormones which causes the law of attraction. “Biochemically speaking, it’s analogous to craving for chocolates. The craving maybe be hunger, may be attraction, may be desire, lust to some perverts, but it is all the same basically you are trying to please the pleasure centers of your brain” says Arka Mondal. But a study says falling in love is the most irrational of human behaviors, not merely a matter of satisfying a simple pleasure, or winning a reward. Moreover the study says this distinction, between finding someone attractive and desiring him or her, between liking and wanting, is all happening in an area of mammalian brain that takes care of most basic functions, like eating, drinking, eye movements, all at an unconscious level.

“Love is when mom kisses me, love is when dad looks at me that one day when he is sitting on couch watching television n I come back from the work and say "dad abhi tak soye nai" love is when my bhabhi say “aaa hero I have seen a girl 4 u”, love is when my sister while doing my work says “jab meri shaddi ho jaegi toh tab kaun kaam karega tera”, love is when I do my work n my brother says “chal kuch kha lete hai”, love is when my best friend says “I always miss you”, love is when girlfriend hugs her boyfriend n says, “you are an idiot”......................love is to feel the relation..............” says Parmeet Singh. I totally agree with him that love is the essence of every relation (except business relations, this is why I hate the corporate world). It is the ‘masala’ in the ‘masala-dosa’. Life is totally impossible and equally unimaginable without love. Love is something which empowers you and yet teaches you compassion. This was the broad spectrum. Strictly saying about love with that special person, I would say love is something which you feel when you look at his/her eyes. You feel powerful as if you can stop the world for him/her and equally weak as if he/she is your strength. Love has elements of desire and expectations. People generally deal easily with the former but not with the latter. “Love is all about giving. But at times it’s difficult to do so because when you give, you start expecting, which hurts later” says Shishupal Singh. Love but do not smother (being too possessive), he or she might suffocate. People also confuse the role of sex in love. If love is the meal, sex is the dessert (sweet dish). Would you enjoy the meal if you have your dessert first? Love is heavenly. And there is nothing as true love and false love. The use of adjectives generally lowers the value of the noun. Love is just love. The other word is infatuation. And one more thing love is precious and hence it is rare. And relationships, they are saplings which need to be nurtured so that they grow into mighty trees. It is best said that to wear your heart on your sleeves isn’t a good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best. This was my take on love, what is yours?

Likeness and love…….is there a difference???

There is a big difference between likeness and love. Likeness is an attraction towards another person……………..however passionate it may be. But love on the other hand is much more than that. It is likeness with integral elements like dedication devotion and commitment. To understand the difference let’s understand the concept of resonance in physics. Every object in this world has a natural frequency with which it vibrates naturally. But when a frequency, equal to its natural frequency, is applied it vibrates with greater amplitude. Same is the case of love when the likeness of both come together with a required magnitude for the relation…….there is a profound effect. That effect is not seen or felt in a one sided attraction. And elements like dedication devotion and commitment make the mind surrender accepting “thy will” not “my will”. This is important in love as the partner and the relation get equal (or even more maybe) importance compared to the self.

BACK WITH A BANG

It is 9:30pm. It has been a hectic day. Days are going to be worse from now as the deadlines of various assignments are drawing closer. So here I am, sitting with half hearted efforts to study Plant Biotechnology. I am just leafing through the pages of the book and getting disgusted………..RNA directed methylations, gene silencing, expression cassettes……..all bouncers………for my already exhausted mind. I closed my book in irritation and a mixture of despair and fear as if the ghost of Grudge was about to come out of it (as she comes out from the television making that horrifying sound). I took a deep breath and leaned back on my chair. And now suddenly I am in a different world…

It is still raining. She is standing in the corridor looking gloomily at the falling drops. Occasionally she is stretching her hands to feel the drops. The light curls of her hair and their aroma have always made me go crazy for her. But today the curls are a little extra curly and their aroma is travelling all through the corridor to my nostrils. It seems she is a little depressed. And by the way her hopes are being dashed every time someone is walking into the corridor, it is clear that she is waiting for someone who has not turned up yet. Maybe she is expecting her group. Yeah! Today I don’t see her gang, which has mixed properties of The Plastics of Mean girls and the Dracula samaj (which my friend Surojit speaks about often). But she is different from them. She is gorgeous with perfectly aquiline features and light brown eyes that sparkle. She is fun-loving, possessing an exuberance which is more like child- like (with integral elements of innocence and transparency). But today the energy is missing and she is appearing like the girl in the song Numb---lost and gloomy.

Hey wait a minute! She is not wearing her usual canvas shoes. Today she is wearing sandals. It’s the first I am seeing her feet. Her feet…O my god! Just like her…beautiful! Her sandals are beautifully striped with silver and black giving a crystal appearance, like Cinderella’s shoes. But the color of her nail polish is a little odd (a little dhinchak). But the overall effect is… elegance redefined.

As I am looking at her, I feel my heart throbbing, faster and faster…And my breath pacing up…, and shallowing synchronously … I think today I must go and tell her that I like her. That, it is she, in the whole planet, who sets up a complete chaos in the physiology and biochemistry inside me. I am standing at the other end of the corridor, behind her. She has not seen me… My impulsive heart is telling me to go. But something is holding me back. Fear maybe, nervousness definitely! But I have to go today because her Dracula gang is not with her (waqt ka kya bharosa, banke pani behjaye! Kal agar na mil paye……rehnajaye baat baki). So after assembling all my courage, I am walking towards her…with heavy steps… The steps are becoming heavier as I am approaching her…closer and closer… (I am feeling as if I am walking in wet sand or water). Mysteriously, the gravity seems to keep on increasing, by and by. But there is some help too, her fragrance…totally bewitching! This is the only force helping me defy all the resistance. And its magnitude too is increasing as I am feeling pulled by this. Finally, I am standing just behind her. She is still playing with the raindrops. And taking a gulp down my dry throat I heard myself saying, “Suno………………….”

And then a sudden, annoying and exasperatingly loud sound shocked me. It was the hostel warden with his theatrical style of flapping up the handles of closed doors with huge force making a loud bang to alert for the attendance. He is more of a theatrical fellow and if you hear him say “zaaaaaldi” (It is jaldi in Hindi) in his hilarious south Indian accent, for the first time, you may die laughing. So the next moment I aggregated back myself together and opened the door. Even though I felt like killing him, while giving the attendance I looked at him and smiled gently.