Sad Sad Sad Sad Sad Sad Sad Day.........

"Sit down for a minute guys" he said as we were just about to finish a meeting and get back to work. "What is it?" some of us questioned in a humorous way thinking he would be talking about his retirement. "It is about doctor.." this sentence from him, changed all of our faces into grave."It seems I have a cancer.. and this might be my last day in office... i am going for a surgery next week" as he said this, his eyes turned red and moist. This is way too much for a person like me to handle, here is a person, who lived a terrific adventurous life, who invented stuff that feeds atleast a 100 families and brought smiles to more than 10,000 individuals, who helped every individual that came to him, why does he have to go through this? it wasn't about the cancer, it was about the way he expressed. His eyes were moist, may be not because he had cancer, but because he had to stop what he loved to do, work, innovate and be amongst individuals he treated like family.

There was a pin drop silence and all of us were looking at each other with grave clue-less faces. We didn't know what to say, we've never seen him sit and do nothing, always working, always innovating. He was rated 9.98 on a scale of 10 by his students in university when surveyed about the best teacher they had. When you tell him, "at some point we should do this", his answer would be "lets do it now!". Yes, thats how we know him, "Do it Now". It was funny, how, one fine day, he walked into office, and said "I am thinking of building a baseball pitching machine", a Doctor thinking about a baseball pitching machine, did you think he was kidding, coz we thought so, but he wasn't, he actually started looking for people who sell the parts used in making one. I had all these flashes.

"Its sad" one of his dearest colleague said, "I know, but it is what it is" he answered.

He sighed and dropped another bomb "Okay, lets get back to work". He worked just as before for the rest of the day. But because of his 5 min talk, none of us could concentrate on work for all day, whenever we had time we talked about him, strange how some people leave impact on you.

just one of those days

Just one of those days..when you get up in the morning and your intuition says
.."this day is gonna be bad "...and here I am...writing a blog on my frustration on a tiny mobile screen..in a extremely frustrated state ...I mean come on...writing a blog on mobile...I have seen better days....any events turned out exactly as my intuition said in the morning... and day ends with sachin getting out cheap..laptop crashing...videos turning out bad....and sleeping with a hungry stomach..hope this internet connection stays put till I publish this blog....

So..given a chance to restart this day would I have done anything different ...the answer from the deepest part of heart is No.. I have chosen what I will go through... and I dont mind that ... only if I could teach a lesson to my intuition perhaps????? ...

Chain of Jealousy

I see myself running on this path of life as a 5 yr old, wild and free, caring a little about world and emotions, definitely very little about the destination. No Chains Attached.

As I grow up on that path, still running, I slow down, not knowing why? There are others running with me too now, I am stronger, I am mightier , yet slow. When I allow my conscious, to move out of my body and act as a mirror, so i know whats holding me, I am surprised to see those chains tied to me.

Chains on my hands, chain tied to my hair, chains on my legs, these chains had a text attached to them, fear, money, lust, attachment, anger, jealousy.

I want to be free, so I apply every ounce of energy I have, to break these chains, I feel my muscles tear apart, but I don't give up. I break free from those chains with shattering sound, giving me extreme sense of gratification.

But the chain of Jealousy is still holding on to my leg, the harder I try the stronger it gets. The thoughts,why am I not that entrepreneur on the cover of popular magazine, why am I not the person she writes about, why I don't drive the expensive car that my friend does, these act as steroids to the chain of Jealousy, the more of these thoughts the stronger the chain gets. While everybody is moving forward, I am stuck there trying to break free from the chain. A situation of panic arises as I think I will be left behind.

Then I hear a thought from my sub-conscious mind, "there is more to life than adding pace to it". I calm down, I look at the chain, its thinner than before. Then I look closely, it has a button "look within", I press that button and I break free.

My Grandma

This is a imaginary story, my mothi-aai was really beautiful.

I loved holding her hand, and sometimes moved her back side of the palm against my cheek.The wrinkles, made me tickle. Although I had just stepped into the kindergarten, I understood that those rough hands were result of all the work she did, day-in day-out. She would clean my running nose and whenever I raised my hands signalling I was tired of walking, she obliged and picked me up on her shoulders. At night, she used to wait with the meal plate in her hand, while I used to run around and feed me with her hands when she caught me. Tired of all that running, I would lay in her lap and sleep before she finished her stories, and surprisingly wake up in the bed nicely tucked in a blanket.

All my friends in school laughed at her, some even got scared. She was old, she had her teeth sticking out of her lips, she was dark, her one eye had turned milky white because of the cataract and she was never dressed as neat as my mom or others. They said she was ugly, but for me, my Grandma was the most beautiful woman, I would wait for her to arrive after my school and tell her all that happened in school. I would talk non-stop and even irritate her with questions like "would you do that?". But I never saw her angry, she would smile and answer. I was everything for her.

Then I grew up, I started feeling she was indeed ugly. Now I didn't want to touch her hand, it felt so unclean. When she would try to hold my hand, I would be angry and ask her to let go. I requested mother not to allow her to drop me at school as my friends made fun of me, because she was ugly. I started avoiding her, sometimes by not answering her questions. I didn't want her around me. One fine day, mom said Grandma left for village for good. I was happy.

20 Yrs later, one day when i was driving my car, I get a phone call. Its my mom, telling me that Grandma had expired. Not that I had ever missed her in all these 20 yrs, but the news kind of shook me. For a brief second I felt the same wrinkled palm on my cheek. Only this time, that triggered tears and a thought "would God ever forgive me for whatever I did to her?"

Dive Experience

My heart is pounding, I see my fins through the mask, they look blurry. I put my regulator in the mouth, and breathe. As I get closer to the edge of the boat, my heart is pounding so hard that I feel its going to burst any moment. I breathe shallower and faster. All the noise on the boat, including instructions from Dive Master, start to fade away. All I can hear is my heart beat. I take a giant stride and bllllllluuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrpppppppppppppppppppppp ( I couldn't believe that I actually jumped in ocean).

For a fraction of second, there is pin drop silence and I just see the bubbles and wonder if i am ever going to surface. Good Lord, I do. "Are you OK?" the first thing I hear after I surface, I signal with my hand take the regulator out of my mouth, relax and laugh in jubilation. The first step is done.

After a series of instructions, we all decide to go down. I put my regulator back in the mouth, and take the air out of BCD. I start to sink, the only time I have been happy about sinking. As we go down my ear starts to hurt, this is very typical and is called a squeeze in SCUBA jargon. So I "equalize" and my ears are okay. I look up and the sight of bubbles reaching the ocean surface just made me smile. We go about 15 feet and reach at a point where there is lot of kelp. If you were ever left agape by a picture , where the sun rays are piercing a bunch of thick trees, just use some of your imagination, fill that picture with blue water, add a couple of orange fishes ( Garibaldi ) around those trees and imagine you are watching this picture floating in air. Thats what I got to see. Underwater, the bulky costume, the heavy weights, your air tank, all these don't bother you. You are like an astronaut, without gravity, literally.

We do some hand signals with buddies and instructor to let everyone know, that everybody is fine. And start to swim our way, we see a lot of blacksmiths, bat-rays, lot of snails. I even saw a crab skeleton. After a few minutes, the fishes feel that you are part of system, so they don't try to run away from you ( as long as you don't disturb them). So now, you have fishes swimming with you, wondering what sort of creature you are.

This kind of repeated in the next dive as well. On the third dive, I thought its getting little boring. So the moment arrives, the most beautiful thing I ever saw till date. The salp, I didn't have a camera under water (bummer huh), but the picture is a representation of what i saw, only that the formation was like leaves on a tree branch. I just kept staring at it, for minutes.

Princess and the Vagabond

Hold your hand for life that seems so wondrous
this thought of yours, so delusional and immature.
my life is full of uncertainties and so treacherous
I got nothing to offer you but a pitch dark future.

You live in grandeur with royals, intelligent and mild,
With everyone you share a love bond.
I live in barren trees, with animals dangerous and wild
I have no one, because i am a uncouth vagabond.

The palace is so high, that you look down to see fog
the dust of town dare not touch your heels
I share my dinner plate with my unkempt dog
wearing a footwear, i don't even know how that feels.

For you, my journey might seem an adventurous feat
infested with problems you will forget romance
when the thorns in my path would puncture your feet
you would be, infuriated with my nonchalance

This infatuation will die, bright future you will see
Dont fool yourself, thinking, it is I whom you need
She cried a little and turned her back to me
I stopped my tears and let my heart bleed

Utsav Sharma: A small candle light turning into huge fire?

Curious to know what happened to the Aarushi case. I opened up news websites, the case is very intriguing and so far lack of evidence doesn't allow any body to be indicted. As I read through the report, like CBI even I felt that her parents might have killed her. And the updated picture of her parents, Nupur Talwar and Rajesh Talwar was shown at the top. I saw that Rajesh Talwar had dressing on his both hands and a band-aid strip on his forehead. I was wondering what might have gone wrong.

At the end of the report it said, "Rajesh Talwar was attacked by Utsav Sharma outside Ghaziabad court". I told myself "wait a second... Utsav sharma... I have heard this name before". And all the news web pages i read in the past 6 months were flashing in my brain.

Utsav Sharma was the same individual who had attacked SSP Rathore, the accused on Ruchika Girhotra molestation case. Again outside court, where time and again justice was denied in both cases.

I am thinking, what a spirited soul that is. He is a man on mission, I don't know why news websites don't talk about him. 60% of the news website dedicated for karan johar b'day party photos, bollywood gossips but not much information about Utsav Sharma.

Utsav Sharma is reflection of the anger that resides in all young citizens of India. Taking law into hand is not the solution everytime. But as Guru Teg Bahadur says... "when all means of getting justice are denied, lifting of sword is just"