PETRICHOR
Sure, it was a hard day;
The client changed his mind again; and I was ready to lose mine.
The software crashed twice;
The project deadline was pulled up day after.
And no on-site on horizon.
The bus back was bloody crowded.
Distracted dinner on Credit Card EMI,
Loan Payment and the Insurance Premium - payable in next two days.
Your good night call rings in. Couple minutes max.
You have to get back to studies; Semester exams in two days.
You just ask how my day was. I enquiry about your study.
You tell me to take care. I repeat you are invaluable.
And on the parched soul of mine,
your voice falls like dewdrops of joy:
that tender care, that gentle concern, that belongingness.
You never forget to rejuvenate my soul, at the day’s end,
after the city’s day shrinks it up.
Happiness…
a simple SMS repeating: Love You, bro…
(via dostoyevsky)
The stranger comes to the city. Looking for the light of his soul. He has lost it in his arrogance or his over zealousness. When you love someone from the core, you may not see some of the edges. Yes, he lost the light of his soul.
He came to the city seeking it alone. Looking it up in all corners of the city, he forgot something that is called time. When he did, he raced over the city looking for his exit. The exit…the exit…where is it? He has to leave right now. But the exit was closed. The exit was gone. He was walled in for the night. Now, he had to seek a roof for the night in the city of hostiles. Every door turned him out. He kept on racing from door to door till evening fell over his face. No roof for him. None. He crawled around one last time, till he found that one room where he was herded in. He settled down for a night of herds.
I thought if this is how I have to seek you, the light of my soul, I would make herd rooms my home, and keep on ignoring my exits, and keep on returning to your city just to make sure you are fine and keep on trying myself against the elements just to have you back. Or just to tell myself that you are still in the orbit of my life, and that life is still not without the hope of a light.
You will always be the light of my soul. And for ever after I will be seeking you, till you come back again into my life.
If you want to read a murder story that puts you in a detective mode, trying to track the killer, head over there. Here you will find love, here you will find hatred, but can you decipher which did the killing. A perfect murder story.
INTELLECTUAL BADASS: CECILIA PAYNE
Think of a famous scientist. If you’re anything like anyone, the chances are that they will be male. This is largely because of the general historical trend of humans being sexist clowns.
Cecilia Payne is perhaps the ultimate example of this. Initially a student at Cambridge and the life of parties at Newnham College, she moved to the United States to pursue astronomy. Her 1925 Ph.D thesis demonstrated that stars, including the sun, are made primarily of hydrogen. For challenging accepted assumptions (that the sun was composed mainly of iron, for example) her colleagues declared her wrong and did their best to block her career. The evidence, however, is somewhat less sexist, and she was proven to be correct. After wading through decades of institutional injustice, she eventually became the first female promoted to full professor within the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the first woman to become the head of a department at Harvard.
Formidably witty yet unassuming, the chain-smoking Payne was also quite a linguist, familiar with Latin, Greek, German, French, Italian, and even Icelandic(!). She makes the average modern liberal arts student’s ability to watch French surrealist film without subtitles seem somewhat half-baked. She even starred in a satirical play about the Harvard Observatory.
Despite the fact that she discovered what the observable universe is made of, almost nobody knows her name. Appreciate the fact that, because of intellectual badasses like Cecilia Payne, when we look up at the sun or the night sky, we can understand what we are seeing.
Photo: Smithsonian Institution Archives
Think’st thou that I who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells,
In being depriv’d of everlasting bliss?”
Christopher Marlowe, Faustus
If I would have had you, everything would have been different. I would have had you, a little piece of heaven, my little angel. Life would have had a musical, magical touch. I would have had been selling myself on toys, cute dresses, and everything else. I would have had been worried and happy at the same time, frowning and smiling at the same time. If I would have had you.
All my journeys would have had a meaning…and my trails would have had a destination…behind all my businesses there would have had been one aim…to pick something real cute for my little one…If i would have had you
When the world barges in with their ruthless practicality, wounding the last tower of my dreaminess, you would have had hold the fort for me, reassuring me with your innocent belief that life is not this harsh…i would have had listened to your words, see the faith in your angel’s face, and i would have had been back, my soul saved yet again.
And if god forbid, someone would have had hurt you, i would have balmed your wound away with my love … then i would have raised hells… or i would have never let anyone hurt you ever… i would be your shield… i would be your sword. if i would have had you.
When I would have had gently told you, kid this fellow is not right, you would have had gently raised your doll’s eyes and asked why bro…i would have hinted on how his character is and you would have murmured but he is my friend but i know you care for me enough if you say this it must be true. then someday you would have complaint about the meanness of one of my friends, and i would have just cut her off. for us, we would be the most important, and the world dispensable.
But i don’t have you. i seek you in the world…i care the same…but it isn’t you…when she speaks, i listen to your words, my kid…but when i speak, i am still a stranger, an egoist forcing his wishes, not a brother, not a brother…
If i would have had you, there may still have been a reason to give life
He walked out unobserved by any. He had walked in the same way. Like a ghost. That’s what they always made him feel. A ghost. Nobody saw when he bleed. Nobody heard when he cried out. Nobody saw when he fell and nobody saw when he staggered around looking for care.
But he did. Every time. He was to rush when he saw her stumble. He was already there to wipe the tears of the child. That’s all that mattered for him. Making the child smile. He was a ghost that cared.
He gladly accepted the kicks of the child. She was his baby too. He let her do whatever she wanted.
Then one day she asked him to leave. She no longer needed his care. Other people cared for her more. He was just a nuisance. He packed his parcel of pieces and left. He wanted to see her smile. Nobody noticed when he was not there.
He was just a ghost after all. Nobody remembers him anymore.
Hung across the shoulder,
it has witnessed the lonely evenings;
gently wrapped in its covers,
lay the despise of all those silences;
one of it zip, sewn up few unuttered words;
behind a pad within, lay few drops of blood;
its strap keeping together the crumbles,
against the blowing wind of paltriness;
in the evening city streets of nothingness,
huddling the haggard satchel…
carrying our crosses and our crowns of thorns,
it’s been a long walk now;
let’s go and hang ourselves somewhere…
Indian Bloggers League. What is it all about? Let us see here.
The Delhi Sutras
Here is the video introducing the team members of The Delhi Sutras representing the city of Delhi in the inaugural blogging championship of the Indian Bloggers League. The video is created by the captain of The Delhi Sutras, Miss Priyanka Dey.
Introducing the team The Delhi Sutras, which is battling it out in the Indian Bloggers League championship.
Ma
Her voice rang through the house.
Huddled in the bed, shaking was she,
As the mother opened the door of the nursery
And flicked on the light.
Ma, Ma, there was a snake in the bed.
See, it crawled over my leg.
I was so afraid it would bite me.
And then I would die blue.
No, my dear, see, there is no snake.
You are in your bed, no snake will get here.
Your Pa will beat them all away.
And you will always be safe.
But I promise, ma, it was here,
It crawled up and up to my stomach.
I wriggled, but I was afraid to move,
And I could only call you loud.
My brave little girl, see Pa is here,
Who can bite you now?
Who can crawl up your leg?
Who can even touch my Snow White?
Pa stumbled into the room;
Smelling so much of something funny;
His eyes shot red, his voice slurred;
What happened to my little girl?
Nothing, Ma quickly replied.
Though she wanted to tell:
Pa, I am so afraid, will you stay here by my bed?
But Ma knew better, and carried Pa away,
Closing the door gently behind.
Nobody seemed to notice
Her little princess frock was torn,
And were those red finger stubs on her milk-white thigh?
Nobody noticed, neither Ma nor Pa;
Yes, the family pride blinds them all.
Innocents were never taught to riot against their wound,
Ma won’t cheat her marriage vows
Pa would play on his animal passion.
And in the evening,
Ma & Pa exchanged their glancing arrows of accusations and warnings,
As she read her child verses of prayer on the bed,
Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
God grant me grace my prayers to say:
O God! preserve my mother dear
In strength and health for many a year;
And, O! preserve my father too,
And may I pay him reverence due;*
Yes, childhood is a paradise
Home’s Haven.
*The child verses are from the poem “A Child’s Evening Prayer” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
This post is part of the contest Ten words to a Story(or Poem).. on WriteUpCafe.com
Yes, I had hated writing this poem. But this needs to be voiced. Ever since a recent news, I had been seething with these intense emotions. Please think about the children bitten by these snakes.
A dusty old piece from my old blog. Take couple of minutes to visit over there.
