Divine Reincarnation?

Those who know me closely will vouch for the fact that I am one of those people who do not come across as the religious types . But one incident is etched in my mind which forces me to think otherwise.
My father works in a bank and on that account we get transferred a lot. And back in 2001, we got a new car while my father was posted in trivandrum. And since my mother is an ardent devotee of lord Ganesha, a brass figurine of Him was placed in the car. A couple of years went by and we meanwhile had shifted to Pune. That was the time when we appointed a driver as me and my sister had to travel a great deal for school and tutions.
Our driver was a 70 year old and apparently well versed in the Hindu religion.
One day , out of the blue, he asked my mother if we had been having trouble with our car lately. My mom replied that we had been having minor scratches and knocks here and there, as is common in big cities but nothin major.
The incident was soon forgotten, until the car started giving unprecedented trouble. This was when our driver uncle intervened and stated that the Ganesha idol in our car had the trunk rolled to the left side and that was considered inauspicious especially in a vehicle as those idols had to be specifically placed facing an east-west direction. And after a lot of frenzied consulting as in most religious issues, it was concluded that our driver was right and the remedy was to offer the figurine into a river along with betel leaves and change money.
That decided, myself , and my parents set out one evening to do the above said ritual. We reached the banks of the river and parked our car, but could not find a way to go to the river. and the instructions specifically stated that we were, under any circumstances, not to throw the figurine into the river. So we circled the banks of the river for 3 hours with no luck and finally decided to come back to the car and leave. We reached the car and were about to get in when we saw a group on pundits nearby. So we enquired as to how to enter the river bank, and to our surprise, they said that we were standing right at the entrance and that the view had been obscured by a pandaal that had been erected for the upcoming ganeshotsav. So slightly baffled, we went and immersed our figurine, got back and drove home.
life went on and we didn't give the incident much thought.
In a couple of weeks my father went to Lucknow for a seminar and the host gave him a memento. He came back home and we opened to present, to find a bronze wall hanging of Lord Ganesha, with the trunk rolled to the left!!! Call it coincidence, call it God's will, The hanging still resides in our house to this day and along with it resides a lot of awe and respect for it in all our hearts.

Harvest

What I sow is what I pay,
but alas,
what I reap is not that to be.

I sow my dreams, my hopes ,my joys,

Why?

To make more dreams come true.

I nurturethe seedlings night and day long,

guard them from the evil song.

Dry summers, Autumns,Bleak winters pass,

spring time comes,

the day of harvest is at hand.

I Sharpen my sickle,

look up to the sky,

walk to the field where my green lay.

I reach my land,

to see a barren turf there.

I break apart.

Hours Pass,

I gather my scattered heart.

My trodden soul too I take.

I make a resolve,

not to make the forlorn green,

but as a last breath of air to my battered self.

This time I challenge God.

I sow my sorrows,

Hoping to reap back the world.

God turns tables,

success I yearn to gain,

Foes are all that I Obtain.

Life,

Why do you play this on me?

True friends ,if any ,and false alike,

This was my life.

Hope that yours, it was not like.

Mithun Abe Mohan.

Memiors of My School Life.

Words don’t come easy to me when it comes to writing about my good old school days. Setting about to describe it is a very difficult proposition as it spans 12 glorious years of my life .It is not only the years that have gone bye but an era. Indeed, the past years have seen my transformation from kid to an adolescent, on to a teenager and finally into an adult. My school has been a silent witness to my journey of life. Silent yet Conspicuous, leaving a powerful impact on my life.
Our school life has groomed us all into socially committed and responsible adults, with basic human values deeply instilled in us.
In contemplation, I guess, I am satisfied that my hopes have been fulfilled because this institution has enabled me to realise my true self.
The ambience of my school has brought out our individuality; the manifold opportunities it gave, helped us realize our capabilities, and its strength gave wings to our dreams and aspirations. It is because of those values that I am what I am today.
The school was not jus the classrooms. The whole process starting from getting ready to go to school early in the morning is what makes it so cherished. The Getting up early in the morning to my mom’s scolding, reluctantly going for a bath, the hurried breakfast with mom running behind me to feed me. Running on the road to catch the bus, the morning assembly, the lunch breaks, sharing lunch boxes, the PT periods, the long corridors where we spent the last minutes of the lunch break chit chatting, the greenery all around, The jungle where we would go to play and have our lunch, the gallery steps, Our open Stage where we used to have our assemblies and our extra curricular activities, the big open ground, our beautiful and well stocked library where we used to spend hours of joy. All of these are little fragments of reminiscences that constitute one my sweetest memory of my life.
I am missing them all.
The years spent here have been a glorious roll of drums. More memories come flooding to my mind
- The time spent with my friends and the frequent battle of wits
- The agony that accompanies a miserable run through the exams and then the exhilaration and satisfaction of an improved performance.
- The joy of an excursion
- The muted sense of empathy for a fellow classmate going thru a bad phase.
- The frequent summons to Principals room to get a piece of his mind.
- The sports day … Annual day … Scouts n guides’ camp…. Farewell day...
The list is endless. I could just go on and on.
It was one of the greatest episodes of our life and it has been a most memorable one.
Our beloved teachers … thank you will be a very mild phrase for them. …..
They gave their priceless moments to our well being, tolerated our tantrums and extended moral support through out. Like Henry Adams says “A teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his influence stops.” And somehow I feel they have played a great part in molding all of us. They were our candle bearers who left us at the threshold of life as courageous individuals and responsible citizen of the country.
It is very hard to put into words all that I feel about my school, but every time I look back to my school days, I Feel Great.

They say ……
To meet, to love and Then to Part
That is the sad tale of the Human heart
But of course, we “meet” to make memories
And “part” to preserve them

I think its true and these memories will always be alive in our hearts.

P.S.- This not an entirely original aritcle. The major chunk of it is the contribution of a friend if mine. As is the idea. I only have editorial rights.
I would like to thank Reshmi for this .

A Cup of Tea

College life gives us a lot of memories .A whole plethora of incidents keep happening every day comprising every genre of emotions. But some are simply etchedin your mind for a very long time.I still remember the day. I was in my second year of college. We had just finished our classses for the day and were hanging around in the "Den" ,as our college canteen is popularly known as. Those days the canteen was strategically placed so that it overlooked the entrance of the college. Unfortunately it has been moved into a corner nowadays, much to the dissappointment of people like me, thourough and dedicated 'observers of people'. anyways, the point is that the first year classes just got over and a group of freshers got out of the college building. we were all delighted, not a the sight of girls and all but simply because finally freshers had come , making us freshers. All heated discussions about calling th juniors and what had to be done started on a war scale basis. All this time was silent , an unusual thing as i am usaully the first one to get excited on things like this. My always loyal friends,who shall remain unnamed, promptly sensed this and all the attention shifted to me . In the mean while, i, oblivious to all this, am staring away to glory at the group of girls. Now please do not misunderstand me at this point because i was not staring a particular person, as i am trying to covince my friends from the past 3 years and i am sure they still dont believe me . Any ways i was mesmerised by the fact that i had finally become a senior and that from today onwards i would have my on personal junior to fetch me water, tea and breakfast, and of course write my journals. This may sound really gross but believe me after one year of filling water bottles, it does come as a helluva relief. As i realised I that was the centre of attention i broke in to my unsuccessful bid at making my friends try to understand my state of mind. In all this time , the juniors had reached near the canteen and wre promptly summoned, I still remember there were 14 of them, 8 girls and 6 boys. The introduction session lasted 45 minutes every second of it a total bliss for me ,forgive me if i sound saddistic but that i cant help it, they were finally let go thanks to the bus that had come. i felt like strangling the bus driver. So the juniors, finally free from our torture, set off to the bus, but not before the boys were reminded to be present in the hostel grounds at 5 30. That was the time when tea was served. We went to hostel to see all the juniors already being grilled by other seniors . At exactly 5 30, the mess opened.A junior was summoned and tea was called for. that was the sweetest tea i had drank in the whole of that one year.I was a senior finally .I drank another cup of tea and told the poor guy to fill water for me..

Want To Be Strong

This is a poem written by my father on a diary that he gifted me...

Want to be strong, son

I want to be strong.

To light a lamp each day,

bring warmth into the home ,

to foster love and belonging

and bring a shine into lives within.

I want to be strong.

for strength begets strength,

strength breeds confidence

for in a world of turmoil,

bedrock of survival is strength.

I want to be strong.

My mind to be clear,

not to be drawn into indiscretions,

not to be cowed by challenges around,

not to stop and surrender.

I want to be strong.

So that the roof is good ,

the poles hold out,

the floor is dry,

the wall is standing.

I want to be strong.

for you beyond me,

stand up and straight,

shoulders squared, head held up,

strong, stronger and stronger.

Because, i am weak son.

I too need a shoulder to lean on.

Mohan.

I guess i have a lot of expectations to live upto.

Within These Gates,All are innocent.

Within These Gates, All are innocent. This was written at the entrance of the cemetery where a dear friend of mine is buried. So paradoxical yet how true. The irony of death. As is often quoted, "death is painful, but only for the living, we who are dead move on to other things."

Death is a humbling experience. It teaches you that no matter where you go or what one becomes in life ,There is an ultimate fate, unavoidable, irreplacable, somewhere in store for us.

Kluttered...

Mostofyoureadingthismaynotunderstandwhatiswrittenatthtefirstglancenorisitmeantobeunderstood.
This was just to cite an example of how important spaces are in our lives. We need space to live, think, act and for almost every other activity that we do in order to stay alive. When I talk of space, it’s not just the physical entity that I mean to define. I am trying to describe a wholesome quantity. A space to live, a space to think, an intellectual, a spiritual, and a personal space.
Space may have individual definitions. To me , for instance, by space, I refer to the freedom of though, the ability to do little things that I like, like being alone when I am distressed, or like going out whenever I feel like. It also means that I should be able to express whatever I feel like in a way I want. Like when I am sad I need the freedom to cry, unbound by social inhibitions. Or when I feel forsaken I need to freedom to feel wanted without the fear of further isolation. When I am joyous I need the freedom to share it out sans the fear of being laughed back at .when I get an idea, I need the freedom to shout it out without fear of being labeled a heretic, and all this is a certain space that I have to create out for my self.
In essence this is what we all strive for in our lives, if you look at it objectively. We earn to give us financial independence. We build a house to provide us certain privacy and a sense of security. We marry to give us a sense of belonging. All these are different ways of creating spaces in our lives.
The absence of such a space creates certain instability in life. When you don’t have the freedom to think as you want to, how can one expect to be happy?
As we move forward in time and hereby in the path of social development, I feel that we are forgetting these spaces. Or maybe there just not enough place in this new world of ours for everyone’s personal “Space”.
As we become dependent on more and more people, the personal spaces overlap.
Classmates share an intellectual space. Relatives share a certain common space.
Friends share an emotional space. All these are mostly welcome, but then, there are a lot of spaces that conflict. Like when somebody interferes in your creativity. When you have to forsake what you love to do for social obligations. That makes you feel stifled.
This stifling is when your space intervenes in somebody else’s.
This is when “Cluttering” occurs. Feeling cluttered has become so common that one doesn’t realise it unless one gives a really conscious thought in that respect.
Every decision we make is at least remotely dependent on the social repercussions. We seldom take a decision that is entirely ours and has no strings attached to it. We
are not consciously aware of it but it remains a fact.
Of course, living in a closely knit society does imply a certain compromise, but the sense of personal freedom must not be lost.
The question is, what needs to be done to minimise this sense of cluttering, as one cannot stop interacting with the society just to feel free.
The best thing to do would be to analyze and reorganize your wants and needs in such a
way that the society has the minimum impact possible. One more would be to redefine your sense of freedom , as in keeping within the boundaries of the society.

10 to 6 Blues

I have been looking around for a topic to write on for ages so that I could start blogging and could not find it… for the past some days I have been keeping company for a friend whose been doing a lot of night shifts lately… I was discussing something bout blogs to her and she was telling me to start blogging I started my usual excuses bout not being able to find a suitable topic and my preferences . It was then that she suggested that I write about night shifts… Although at that time I thought of it as not at all suitable, on second thought I was like why not!! I mean this is a very common and contemporary topic. Today, with so many companies outsourcing and the upcoming need to work in sync with American schedules , it is not surprising to see more people working on night shifts. Personally speaking I am one of those people who love the night. I love staying awake at night, I love night rides, I prefer studying in the night. for me night gives me some sort of freedom. I love the serenity of the night, the stillness, the way it allows you to feel you are the only human alive. But then whenever I am awake at night its almost always by choice not out o obligation so I wouldn’t be actually be correct at comparing myself to the people working night shifts. that is partly because when I am awake at nights I am mostly doing things I like doing .So when it is not much of a compulsion it is ok with us I guess. But then the truth is that staying awake at nights has serious repercussions on your body. it affects you physically, u keep ill , u become lethargic, become less sociable, there are serious disruptions in your body clock, and so on so forth. My idea is not to a pro/con account related to night shifts. I just want to share what I feel about it. there are a lot of reason people work on night shifts. The first reason is of course obligation. sometimes you have no choice but to work nights. but a major chunk of people do it because of the money. getting paid more than one and a half times just because you are doing it in the night is a very lucrative proposition. Believe me when I say this. But depending on the intensity of work , the work conditions, like the ambience etc, and of course your co workers, night shifts are often quite manageable.. there are lesser people around and the absence of people higher up the ladder is not at all regretted.. If u are used to it then it becomes just another day working, but that is a big if considering the fact that u have to adjust to the fact that u are working when other people sleep . But the other side to it is that you are sleeping when the other peopleare working so the optimistic point of view is a lot better in my opinion. also there is a drastic change in lifestyle so that needs to be adjusted to. All this is just an outsiders point of view so forgive me if I sound all positive about night shifts . believe me i am not. I have a lot of friends working nights so I know the dark side of it too. but then all said and done , I think this is a consequence of globalization and that it is jus going to get more an more common. I personally wont be surprised to see global software companies working shifts. The bottom line however remains that whatever people do to earn is fine but it should be sustainable it the long run. earning a bit more today and spending thrice the amount on health expense 20 years down the line does not make a lot of sense ,at least to me. This not a very concludable topic but its a very personal and conditional choice whether to work in night shifts or not but then personal happiness health should be a very prime priority.