Voices clamoured, doors shut with a thud, the nearby road had vehicles passing by, honking without a reason, glasses fell one after another and the cacophony reached the sky blazing heat!!

Rain had decided not to take a break from letting itself fall towards the Earth. Wind had also connived and brought along its might, disturbing the balance of the trees. Under the old banyan tree stayed put that little boy who had so badly wished it to rain.

I am Life

I am Life,

I will chase you

till your Death,

Believe it or not,

I am more powerful 

than Death,

which occurs once

and sets you free,

but not with me.

You got to be strong

to face me,

I love playing games,

throwing challenges,

pushing you to the limits,

and when you saturate

and give it all up,

comes your end as abrupt,

but for those, who fight along,

and show their might,

I come alive, and yes,

this is also me,

this is your Life.

Reflections

While talking to my sister yesterday, she referred to an incident that had happened in a University. The case was of harassment or molestation by a professor of a foreign student. My sister had met somebody who happened to be the girl's friend. As far as we knew and I think that is public knowledge now, that there was no case against the professor. This guy whom my sister met also told about  some female students who had been to the foreign student's room to dissuade her to complain against the professor. Well, the case was also not pursued because the student went back to her country as I am told.

Well, we did not know the facts. What we were talking about was completely based on other people's versions. But even in other people's versions, there is a prominent point that stood out for both of us. There are so many cases of violence, rape, molestation where we do not take action or we deter the person who had been at the receiving end of the traumatic incident to not report or not pursue the legal course of action against the one who perpetrated the crime. Why? because it is a family member? it is someone who is renowned? someone who is known to the person?

Today in the newspaper, there was an incident reported . The news is from Delhi. The girl in question was discouraged by the PG owners even the police saying that he was a baccha. It seems the guy was known to PG owners as well as the cops. But does it undermine the nature of the act committed only because the person is known?

It struck me in the morning that we had a discussion on a related issue yesterday evening and in the morning the newspaper had an article. The article also mentioned people telling the girl not to report because what if he gets back and take a revenge.

Why are we telling the girl not to report? Why aren't we telling the other people , the relatives, the family members to report?

Reflections

I grew up cherishing humbleness and modesty as one of the highest virtues of life. Those who have achieved higher goals in their lives need not put forth in their own words their achievements in front of others as the world would already know about their feats. This is what I used to think and for the most part of it, I still believe in it. But taking a look around, I feel modesty and humbleness have become a rare treasure found only in a few who shine without the embellishments of their own words about their greatness.

This reminds me of an incident which I think was quite amusing for me. (I do not know whether the person whom I found hilarious thought it to be so, well if she had put in so much of thoughts she would not have uttered the words) This was about an year ago. I would go to play tennis in my campus every evening. I never saw this woman playing herself but it seems she had noticed me playing. One day as I was on my way back, chance had made me come across her. We exchanged the regular hello and she complimented me on my game. Well she said , "Your technique is very good" I had a confused expression on my face to which she responded "Oh, don't worry, I won't come to play". My expressions were confused because I know my shortcomings while I play. Did she read my expressions as I were afraid to confront one of the greatest players. Well, I think now I sound a little condescending but a person who has never been seen on the court, how can she comment on the technique? If she were so much into the techniques, never ever did she want to show them on the court? Well, I am really amused about how people brag about their skills which they do not even possess. (Now that I have written about this incident, I have two more related to my tennis skills) Another person commented, "oh you have learnt now how to play!" I amuse myself by thinking within my head as if he had seen me start learning how to play and now I have reached a certain passable limit of the game. Well, generally I ignore and do not correct the perceptions people want to make about me. I feel even if I do mention that I had learnt playing tennis a long time ago so, would that really change his perception. Again, on some other occasion, he will make his own ideas about, not just me but about any other person.

Here I may be wrong, but I only care about the perceptions that my near and dear ones have about me.

Coming back to modesty and humbleness, they do not remain virtues for the majority and have become a sign of weakness and flaw. These days if you do not fall on the majority side, you certainly belong to the wrong side. 

Modesty and Humbleness also invokes in me the idea of speaking with respect to anyone. What I have witnessed in this one year is something not really surprising but the fact that it gets prominent with each passing day in my life with the people around has become a fact pretty indigestible. The trend is not only for those who are in the position of authority, who deem themselves as the only masters but at each level of the hierarchy, one faces such a behaviour. 

I do not say that I am the perfect person born in this world. No, I am not. No one is. What I try to do is to reflect upon my shortcomings. Some attributes I would love to inculcate in me, I put effort to imbibe. I just wonder whether reflections are being done on individual level. I am sure there are innumerable others who give hope, who have virtues, who inspire others to be a better person. I have met many in my life. Yet somehow where I am today, brings forth a grim picture. 

  

A world
where one fences
self with high walls,
where no one touches
another soul,
where emotions
bear no imprint
on others' hearts
and rationale resides
in an oblivion,
where all voices
yell simultaneously
to an audience unknown,
is this the world
we are living in today?

Death is the Ultimate Truth
and yet we all live but in resignation
How dreadful a moment that would be
when a dear one has been taken away
never to return in the physical form
but alive always in memories,
why do we have to endure and undergo
the cycle of life? Why to be born at all when
one day we all leave for a place unknown?
I refuse to part ways from my loved ones,
But Who cares when you are doomed
in this maze of Life and Death!