How Do You Start Over?

How do you start over?

Where be the beginning,

Where be the end?

What be the aim,

What be the goal?

How do you start over,

No one ever told.

A string of words hover

A thousand memories flash,

A blind getaway one hopes for

Looking for a place numb to crash.

How do you start over,

Would anyone know?

Clean a dirty slate

And mess it up again,

How many times is the slate to be cleaned,

Before they are stopped calling stains.

How do you start over,

Does its route have any maps?

How do you start over,

Does it have to involve pain?

All those things I wish I had told.

All those things I wish had told all 'those' men, had I the patience and the frame of mind.

If you think that the girl slinging to your arm or someone else's arm or not slinging onto anyone's arm is your personal commodity, you think very highly of yourself. You should know that one doesn't have to be a doctor to know how to castrate. (Refer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Candy_(film)) If a woman can cook you chicken, she can slit you into any desirable piece she wishes to make of you (not necessarily halal cut).

914 women are enough to wipe out 1000 men. If given a choice, women would like to see the tiger census go up than have more of you in this world. They have cared more about animals than they ever have about you.

A woman does not need to know the language you speak to know that you are speaking about her. Infact, she can read your thoughts. You should probably be hung upside down by means of two hooks without food/water/porn till you die to begin to think like a normal human being. Oh wait, that will just make you deprived, forget the becoming normal human being part, we will just let you die.

There are good people in this world, most of them are women and the rest are respectable men. Respectable men know their limits and therefore they will survive, happily.

Do not push women to start off a revolution. If that happens, you would be praying to God that you had behaved. We will stomp on you till you plead, the women that you call 'Fat' will sit on you till you suffocate and die.

DO not push for a revolution. This world would then be full of women and they would all make peace with being lesbians.

Therefore I repeat, DO NOT.

DON'T.

Messengers of Apathy

A wingless bird on a sturdy flight,

A handsome roar to an ugly sight,

A painless tear to a stinging plight,

A shield of ruse to unreasonable height.

We, the Messengers of Apathy,

We scream, we swear, we bite.

Quantum Dole

As we strive to maximize the pittance that rolls one's way,

A bidding happens with another, doling out quantum pays;

Too tight one clasp, too loose the other hold,

Too meager a mean, too eager a soul.

And farewells are a part of life at every door,

"It comes, it goes", everyday the same show.

To fight the journey of the come and go, a probe,

A minor break, in a major flow.

A tale too heard, a tale much told,

A moment of peace, a moment of hope.

Simplistic Survival

In this world full of sounds and lights,

There are corners that are not so bright.

Where people do live and life doesn't know,

Of complications apart from the sun, the fireflies and the starry glow.

Many men there are, many women too,

And equations simple, 1+1=2.

Equally do they know of moods and highs and lows,

Its just that their remedies are not sold in stores.

*Attempt #1 at capturing the feel of Arangottukara*

That thing that mom taught.

Life has never been fair. A proven fact. So when your mother told you as a child growing up to be grateful to God for being blessed with what ever little you have, to not crib and ask for more, she had her research done. So I will tell you a story not exactly in the conventional story format, about a school whose students are not too different from the standard prototype of children your mom told you about.
A newspaper boy, a maid, a potter, a car washer, a dish washer, a dhobi are amongst the several answers that you will get if you ask what the activities of the students at Carmel School, Gedelahalli (in Bangalore) are apart from studies. Their part time jobs may not be as fancy as the ones you and I may pick, but then again, Mom asked us to be thankful. So whenever and wherever we find the need be thankful we will, right?
This school of 210 students has 210 unique stories to tell. An abusive family, an ailing parent, insufficient income, unemployment, the shame of not being able to pay monthly fee(as low as 100 and 280 depending on classes), the embarrassment of walking barefoot to school because the shoes that was worn for three years finally gave way, are all problems that we try to empathise with when we are not wailing in the sadness of our hundred broken relationships. But the truth in the voice of these small story tellers is of another kind. Remember what mom said? Yes, we are thankful.
If you were to take the best dancers of this school or football players of this school, you would be amazed to see that, there lies just so much potential within them. If you could find a medium to really communicate with these children, they would finally be able to tell you that they are not really bad students. They are trying but just aren't able to study. Despite spending hours on studies, its just hard for them to understand because English is just too complicated and that there is no one at home educated enough to teach them. The teachers would tell you that despite staying in the school till 5 in the evening so that they can teach the weaker kids, the progress is not too much. They would tell you how they are working hard and trying to make a difference in lives of these kids so that they have a life that will stand at least some chance against ours. If you spoke to the people running the school, they would tell you how hard it is for them to meet their daily expenses and pay the teachers, because the school is just unable to generate any money from the fees and that is limiting them from providing a million other opportunities to these children who they adore so much. The kids who are unable to pay the fee would tell you that if they pestered their parents to pay the fees, that would be the end of their education. Dint mom say be thankful, yes yes thankful we are! Definitely!
These children did not choose such lives for themselves. They dint ask for any of this. It isn't their fault. Our mothers and fathers who taught us the valuable lesson of being thankful are the ones who jump at every chance they get to try and give away unused clothes, shoes and books to such children. We weren't taught these values just to show gratitude but to keep the cycle of being able to provide for others going and to empathise with children whose lives we very well could have lead.
I do not intend to call us insensitive. If we can 'like' and join the cause that CRY or PETA addresses, then being able to sensitise with this issue and taking it beyond just the 'like' factor shouldn't be that hard.
Supporting the education of a child for a year, including the fee, school uniform, books and others will cost Rs.8000. When I heard about this amount, I thought of all the things that I unnecessarily spent money on and realised that with just that amount a child could have attend school. If you think the same and feel the same and you along with your family would like to sponsor the education of a child for one year and you urge others to do so as well, several lives would change and you would be thanked for it.
Remember all things mom said and even if you would like to contribute just 50 rupees to the school, please do.
:)

Change In The Hands Of A Woman

Call it the outlook of a 21st century youngster or just my prejudice and partiality towards women, I believe that the term "change for the better" can be facilitated only through the hands of responsible women. However, this does not imply that I find the menfolk of our country and elsewhere incapable of being change makers, I just doubt their loyalty towards the 'change'.
(Debatable though, but that's not the aim here.)



The girl clad in jeans and kurta is Chavvi Rajawat, the youngest lady Sarpanch of Soda Village, 60km from Jaipur. She left her corporate job and city life to join politics, becoming the Sarpanch of Soda village. Her grandfather Brig. Raghubir Singh was the Sarpanch of the village, from which she too was elected.
She is currently focusing on achieving the Millennium Development Goals for the village and to make the village self-sufficient without the intervention of the Government or NGOs. She had also addressed global dignitaries at the 11th Info-Poverty World Conference held at the United Nations in New York.
She has changed the concept of a village Sarpanch in India today, from the stereotypical image being of a worldly-wise elderly man wearing a kurta-dhothi to an equally knowledgeable fresh youngster, tech savvy and jeans clad. The world around us is changing and women are contributing endlessly to bring in radical change.

Women like these inspire me. After having read about her, my inclination to get into politics has escalated to a whole new level. I wish to be amongst these women who will wash away the backwardness in time and put rural India on the world map of its conserved ethnicity and self-sufficiency.


To the change-makers of the future(in which I include), both men and women,
Self-sufficiency is not mediocre and survival does not mean compromise.
The rural India is only accepting the current scenario, for them acceptance is a mean of adaptation, its not a choice.

Square One

To hear your own self crunch,

In the silence of someone's deed.

To lose your calm and peace,

So much that you cant breathe.

To leave and walk from all,

Thinking you will be free.

And to then walk back,

Because you have no where else to be.

The Insensitive Census

After a morning of disturbing arguments with my mother the last thing I wanted to respond to were the 'Census' people. Well, to my requirement, that came true and I dint get to talk to them.

My house is comfortably located in a cozy corner of the world, far from civilization which requires me to walk a kilometer at least in order to appreciate and view human faces. With a morning that started with a fight and already late to attend the first hour of college, grumpily I took long strides. And before the final turn (which is quite an invisible turn really) to my house, I saw them. Since mom leaves for work and after socializing and empathizing with her school children comes back home really late, I knew if any one had to answer question that would be me and since I wasn't in the mood for it, we were amongst those chosen few who were too cool to be counted in the large numbers. To my comfort, I liked that version better. I wanted our numbers and facts to play hard to get, thus assuming that they will come back the next day or the day after to take records. (I try and mend every situation to suit my needs of either elevating my ego or tramping over it. This was mended for the prior. Ah! what a feeling to be wanted and needed so much.)

The very same day i read the article of C.K Meena on The Hindu. My ego shrunk to the size of a pea. The very though of not being included in the census of the country that I so proudly belong to and the country that allows me to post any bull crap I want on my blog without restrictions, the same very country whose roads hate but whose portals I can never convince myself to ever leave, disturbed me immensely. I wanted the 'Census' people to come back. I want them to come back. It doesn't matter to me if I'm just a mere number with a few details in their records but as long as I'm counted, I know that they know I belong and I exist.

I eagerly wait for them to come. Like a lover I mourn my own loss.