Away from home.

As a word itself ‘HOME’ is contradicting in nature. It combines the spirit of the bonding and separation together.

Being confined in very homelike environment always keeps from essential exposure to the reality outside at the same time it just not leave your heart, it keeps on spreading over the body, mind all the time you are away.

All the years back home created the suffocation, contracted the flavor of the experiences. I felt locked in the shell and over protected and now I want to go back all the time. Why do we leave our native if we cannot accept the distance in first place?

To find the unknowns, to feel the loneliness, to value them better, to earn some money on your own, to get the feel of the venture, To find out all the strengths and weaknesses in self…there are thousands of sundry reasons and then the sense of separation propels.

May be only those can realize, how it feels, when you crash in the bed after a long hard day and close your eyes… “Eight more days to go home”, “Seven more days to go home”… who stays far away from home? There will be lot of illegal immigrant staying in foreign lands for decades…they cannot come back. They would have been left with memories of the memories…the turn of the street in the town, the group of the friends in the cold night, all the relatives who came to airport to say goodbye… They leave all of them just like that as it was. Exiled people also must have felt that strong affection for the native land. A Goaen poet was expelled by Portuguese government during freedom fight wrote “What all I left for love of Goa?” It extends the list of wonderful pleasures in homeland including the red sand remained on poet’s hand. Surly the girl’s departure to in-laws house also would be raising the same sentiments of “leaving home”. A moment of separation from father, all the garlands offered to late relatives, Grandma’s glasses, younger sister’s comb, and elder brother’s towel, smell from mother’s sari…everything is left behind. Last Mogul emperor Bahadursha Zafar was exiled to Rangoon, Burma. There he wrote in his last days…

Lagtaa nahii hai dil meraa ujRe dayaar meiN, kiss kii banii hai aalame-naapaaidaar meiN

umr-e-daraaz maaNg ke laaye the chaar din,do aarzuu meiN kaT gaye do intezaar meiN

Cannot find peace, this heart of mine, in this wrecked land

Who has succeeded in this, transitory world?

Having asked for a long life, I brought back four days

Two passed away in yearning, and two in waiting.

You can hear the whistle blow A hundred miles

Lord,I’m one, Lord, I’m two

Lord, I’m three, Lord, I’m four

Lord, I’m five hundred miles away from home, Away from home.

Close up:

“Half the lies they tell about me aren't true.”

~Yogi Berra

A Decade ago & Looking forward.

When I look back in ten long years gone by… What I know now which I did not know then?
Of course age makes feel good inside and bad outside but apart from that ….how was the show in the matter of Education, Employment, Finance, family, friends, health, travel, spirituality, wisdom, knowledge and rest of the other victories and disasters? What did I learn and what is it that I am still trying to understand as a person?

Hard work and diligence counts, a decade ago I thought I would never be able to join college even but having my PG degree proves that no matter when but some day all the toil we do pays back.
A wish to be independent came true either…A decade ago, I had stared at expensive perfume and sighed ‘wish I can buy this for me’… now I can enjoy that pricy perfume. I pay for all my necessity and can save for my uncertain future :) I thank all of those who supported me in doing this. Yet there is lots to do though.
My lonely years in faraway land made me realize the value of my family. Honestly, it feels like heaven when I have my parents and siblings around. It’s extremely delighting to have two little nieces who twaddle in my ears. I pray that I will always have them by my side.

I also earned 3 new friends in the decade passed, hopefully they will be there till the end. Interestingly I am more thankful to those who came in the form of friend and turned out to be something else… I was deceived, I was misunderstood and cheated. Now I know, you never know whom to trust before you are betrayed. Now I know that we have to take the calculative risk and let things go sometimes. Now I know that it hurts but nothing lasts really. Now I know that there is destiny and there is time. In such cases nothing can be done except being careful. Now I konw that few lessons are expensive but stumble prevents the fall.

I weigh less than a decade ago and run better too. To my surprise, I turn out to be a role model in the area of health and fitness for my age. I think I did ok there by God’s grace.
Well, Bravo to me !! …I have developed the skills of silently counting down the minutes of each day is the most estimable achievement, which I had thought I will never learn a decade ago.

Now the rest of the areas where I performed not so good :( I travelled to 10 new cities in India and 5 new cities abroad. This should have been double. I am actually not so ameliorated in spiritually as well, Though I am trying. I am relatively wiser than a decade ago but still not up to the mark as per my own standards. I can make better choices for sure but lots to be done to prove myself as knowledgeable… Actually it’s in ‘Work-in-progress’ status where I have just figured what I can have for myself and how.

I must thank last decade for giving me the staying powers, affability, and adaptability.
Hope I can work on detachment, cognition and spirituality in coming new decade.


Close up:
“even a brick wants to be something”
~Louies Khan

Playing God.

At this moment, I am having an affair with Divinity. I realized that love doesn’t fluctuate, the very quality of love is something which lasts, something which doesn’t leave you. Or may be affection is for humans…because affection dissolves, affection develops and affection shifts…and love is for God. Hah…Now I will say that it can only be with God, humans don’t deserved to be loved.

Na thaa kuch to khuda thaa, kuch na hota to khuda hota
duboya mujhko hooney ney, na hota main, toh kya hota?

"When nothing was, then God was there; had nothing been, God would have been,
My being has defeated me, had I not been what would have been?"

I had been Shiva devotee for long...thinking that Shiva is God. Unless the thought stuck, Shiva is meditating !? To Whom? Shiva is meditating to God?? Means shiva is not the God? May be …well, During my entire being, he was with me…2000 yrs ago and 350 yrs from now, he will be with me.

“I needed God. He was given to me and I received Him without entirely comprehending what I was seeking. Then – because my heart didn’t let Him set roots there- God ended up dying inside me. Today, when people mention Him, I say – like an old man trying to revive an old flame, ‘Fifty years ago, if there wasn’t a misunderstanding, if there weren’t certain mistakes, if there wasn’t the accident that separated us, both of us would have had a beautiful love story.’”

“The Words” Jean-Paul Sartre. French philosopher.

Close up:

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

~Harper Lee