River of dreams-Billy Joel

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
From the mountains of faith
To the river so deep

I must be lookin' for something
Something sacred I lost
But the river is wide
And it's too hard to cross

even though I know the river is wide
I walk down every evening and stand on the shore
I try to cross to the opposite side
So I can finally find what I've been looking for

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the valley of fear
To a river so deep

I've been searching for something
Taken out of my soul
Something I'd never lose
Something somebody stole

I don't know why I go walking at night
But now I'm tired and I don't want to walk anymore
I hope it doesn't take the rest of my life
Until I find what it is I've been looking for

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the jungle of doubt
To the river so deep

I know I'm searching for something
Something so undefined
That it can only be seen
By the eyes of the blind
In the middle of the night

I’m not sure about a life after this
God knows I've never been a spiritual man
Baptized by the fire, I wade into the river
That is runnin' through the promised land 

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the desert of truth
To the river so deep

We all end in the ocean
We all start in the streams
We're all carried along
By the river of dreams
In the middle of the night

Transition...

 i am at a strange crossroad of my past, my present and a future where suddenly every one of them is different from the other..

recently i came to know that one of my closest friends lost her father...and she did not tell me..the reason she told me-she did not want to shock me in between my happy times..

and am thinking...am i really happy? are these really happy times?and is any happiness more than a friend's or a close one's grief..?

no, because i feel the same grief..maybe a little bit more that she could not tell me when she was craving to..and i wasn't there when she needed me the most..to talk..to hold her..

in the last few days i also came across many situations that  rather than make me happy have irritated me and made me sad..

i have lived by my impulses always..have been reproached, reprimanded by many at many times..but i haven't left being impulsive because i like being that way..i am good at mathematics, but i can not make calculations while living my life..and that is one of the things in my life i do not want to ever change..it is my choice..and the truth is i am very self obsessed..i really do not care much about 'enlightened , 'know it all' and great " people..again my choice..because there's not much i can do about their thoughts..i just do not endorse their thoughts and to everyone their own..nor do i need calculations to go up in the ladder of my career..or my life..

love being directionless..and undefined..how boring if i could be put into a type..forgot what it was called..but believe me i actually got typecast..and had to go through an analysis by various persons who went on debating on all sides of why that "type" was right..and wrong..as they couldn't reach a consensus, i didn't think i was any type..

some people came crashing down from their altar..some i had heard so much about..some people who i thought gave the impetus for workers like us..but to realise that was just an image..and it made me think what a mirage we live in..my need to find idols to look up to only resulted in creating ones without substance..and now i am again in between ..in transition..in confusion..in my need for answers..and a whole new set of questions...one day i was gushing that i would be meeting one of the greatest peoples in india..the other day, i was left feeling empty..having met the 'names"..no person..or maybe..i am too self obsessed..who cares? that i am..can't and don't want to look beyond my nose and what makes me happy..

another thing that strikes me very often these days..i am not a very private kind of person...i can  talk about anything, to anyone at anytime..that puts me in a fix many times..but i still keep doing it...and somehow my caring about those only makes me cringe and not very happy..so..what the heck..i'll do what i want to do..like i started talking  about Reproductive and Child Health as a worker when i was 18..talked about condoms in public forums just about that time..about pre-marital sex and moral sanctions , homosexuality too..i did the "Maya Story" as a trainer at 21..and believe me..no one, specially the oldies,even  looked me in the eye after that..they were that shocked...and i can hold hands in public, give away hugs to my close ones to a dozen, and smile at everyone who cares to give me a friendly look..but again..if anyone has issues they can very well find their solutions..not hear what i say..not accept what i think, not believe in my value system..and not read what i write..it is my personal space...my decision to write what i want..i am no torchbearer of bloggers..or of society...my thoughts..my choice to make it public...and the choice of  "public", including everyone to decide if and what  they want to say in it..but yes..wouldn't really probe on anyone's private space..that includes yours too..

meanwhile i have given up on all gods...in the last five years i had made myself a student of every religion  i came across and faithfully read all their scriptures and religious books i could lay my hands on, following every ritual i could that those books prescribed..following every stupidity...last two years i had stopped going to any religious place of worship as a place of worship..living a life without god and filled with every kind of puja and ritual and fast and trying to feel what one is supposed to feel ..my search for god finally brought me into an empty space..and i feel empty like the emptiness of those rituals which brought no happiness, no peace,  no bhakti..and definitely no god for having done them...

coincidentally,in those past few days, i have come across some really stupid people and very hurtful sentences..and my obsession with myself and my knack of relating every action , every word to my own are resulting in sleepless nights and short naps that are filled with dreams of transition, travel-by bus, by train, by fighter planes,  killings and suffocation...a dream interpreter is highly in order...

shouldn't i be happy? but i am not..

the only respite i find is in my work and my work has become my vacation..i feel myself pondering about my work...i know my work can live without me..there are many who'd fill my shoes as soon as i leave..but can i? can i leave my work, my need to be with my people, and still be happy? i don't think so..don't feel so..i was in mumbai for a week...trying to get used to the feeling of living there..and great though that was, building our home..i couldn't feel at home..it was like a transit house...somewhere i can go for a few days..but it never will be my home..at least not now..

add to that the comedy that has happenned in the last few days..juggling people's and places..and actions and rituals...trying to accommodate everyone's whim...for the great indian comedy show called "wedding ceremony", which makes me crave for once, that i wasn't in india bound by rituals and beliefs that do not bind me as an individual..now,like it or not ,  i find myself doing them..a first for me..but for whom? who will be happy? i certainly am not..my husband has a phobia of  too may people and him being the center of attention....Add to it..i find myself in middle of "your" side and "our" side..now  my  confusion is  whose side am i on? now i know what they mean by "dhobi ka kutta"... because i am detaching myself from my roots..and the new soil is still not mine..

The Silent Divorce...

Sentences spoken..
One word not spoken..
and a silent divorce..

of masters and lives
of being and unbeing
of zillion things done
just one undone
and a silent divorce.

a life lived
of relationships built
of moments lived
just one strike at heart
and a silent divorce

of lives lived together
of smiles and laughter
of togetherness
then the vaccum
and a silent divorce

of journeys made
of places visited
of people worshiped
just one road not taken
and a silent divorce

invictus

My most favourite poem..

Something i just found myself reciting...

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

-William Ernest Henley

Severed...

Rootless lives...

parasitic existence of haustorium...
no beginning..no end...
the looks of disgust..
the angry words...discarded everywhere...


or loosened roots..that of a sapling...
a new ground....some new soil...a new maali..
a shifting of place..a change of weather..
and dried leaves....

or a xerophyte...
a cactus in the dessert... thorns..and wild...
now put into a shopping window..
 manicured..watered...withered...

The Silent Noise

some days, the pain is all you are left with..

the pain of that friend lost..
the pain when she just disappeared from your life, forever..
the pain of not knowing what went wrong..
the pain of loving her still..
the pain of not even being able to talk to her in her time of grief..
the pain of coming across her picture on another friend's wall..

the pain of a relationship broken..
the pain of words said which will never come back..
the pain of one moment which changed your life..
the pain of tears you wish you had never shed..
the pain of being misunderstood by the man who you loved..
the pain of hating when you wanted to love..

the pain of your trust broken by someone in family..
the pain of ideals crashing in front of your eyes..
the pain of knowing somethings will never be the same again..
the pain of knowing your home was never yours..
the pain of knowing that this is the world which you didn't believe in..
the pain of knowing that your world never existed..

the pain of the sorries that couldn't be said..
the pain of the calls you never could make..
the pain of that letter still lying unposted..
the pain of that moment when you never turned..
the pain of that turn in your life you left far behind..

School Chale Hum....

MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT GOAL 2:
ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION

Target 1: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling

This is the picture of a child in Bayakemutia Village of banspal in Keonjhar. He has never gone to school..

One of my favourite vision is of children going to school..Do not know the reason..when i am out on my field visits, it just elates me..to see rows of kids..young and younger..hair neatly combed down..uniforms..feet still without chappals..but walking still..with the books in hands..in polythene packets..in cloth bags..in school bags..

but going to school..

that's one vision that completely elates me..engulfs me..and specially when it is the girl children..That's one occasion when i feel, beyond my regular cynicism..that things will change..we still have hope..and tomorrow will be a better day..and that ad of "School Chale Hum..", don't remember whose election campaign that was, but..beautiful..and captures the soul of millions of children in India who are still out of schools..

Today is Ganesh Chaturthi, when thousands of kids in India will pick up a chalk pencil for the first time, and as in Odisha, start their educational careers with three "OOO" which once stood for Bramha, Vishnu, Maheswar, but i guess in the modern day scenario, it is the Legislature, Judiciary and Executive, the three big zeros of our democracy..

My cynicism apart, Parliament has adopted ‘The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2009,’ which envisages free and compulsory education to children in the 6-14 age group with the Lok Sabha approving it by voice vote and the Rajya Sabha passing the Bill on July 20.The law would ensure that the child got free, compulsory and quality education by qualified teachers.It would also lay importance on local language as a medium of instruction, less rigorous course curriculum and importance on all round development. There are many other things that this law says..but this much is mouthful already.
 

Let's forget the point that India took 62 long years to pass a bill which should not have taken so long in coming..let's forget that the law in October 2006 banned child labor in hotels, restaurants, and as domestic servants and i'm still to find a restaurant, a hotel which doesn't have a child as a labour. In fact, in the last meeting at one of the leading hotels at Bhubaneswar, attended by the ministers, et al, it were the kids , aged about 10-13, passed for "above 15" in ill fitting uniforms , serving out drinks..But, i digress yet again.

Let's also conveniently forget that majority of the country is still illiterate, majority of those still live in dire poverty and incommunicable ares, where schools do exist, but without a building and any teacher..Let's forget that there is one teacher per hundred children in many places, and the one teacher is also the cook of the mid-day meal programme, the surveyor of the government, the supervisor in elections, the trainee in umpteen number of sub-standard trainings..

Well..before i get kicked by my friends for being such a pain in you-know-where, , i can say, there still is a silver lining..There are many people in and out of the government who are genuinely concerned about the quality of education, the student -teacher ratio, the course-curriculum that goes beyond the very hackneyed education which is based more on mugging up facts and reproducing them accurately, rather that igniting minds, that APJ AK, our ex-President believed it..Nehru, besides all his crankiness believed that children were the future..well, at least he put certain shapes in place, whose wheels have started moving now..There are NGOs like PRATHAM, CHIP, MOBILE CRECHE, PRAKALPA, EGG, and zillions of others doing some really great and innovative work..

There are also people like XYZ in the outskirts of Ranchi, a certain lady in outskirts of Bengaluroo, in Delhi, who are at grassroots, doing experimental teaching with excellent results..The challenge is to bring them to a single platform..the government, the planners, the educationist, and the scientists in education, that's what i'd like to call them..and understand how these all can be put together..

We all have a common dream..a bright india, an educated india...My husband-select has some crazy dreams about doing that..bringing them all to a single platform..and me being crazier, will go ahead with him in his dream..

[Photograph clicked by me in a remote village in banspal during my field visits . Editing of the photograph done by Udit K ]

Mi Amor

in all sorries and their sorrinesses
in the depth of my gratitude
in the width of the circling horizons
of unending pain
in the heights of my ecstasies
i find you

i lose you for a moment
and i know the stillness of death
but even death has a point
i look everywhere but alas
and in a sudden glance
i find you

you become my zephyr of life
you give me my breath
you beat in my heart
you run in my veins
and i lose myself

in you i lose
your eyes i become
i smell with your breath
you i taste
your ears i become
and i feel you

i become your heart
and fight your mind
i think your thoughts
and i hold your pain
your smile hangs on my dimples
and i find myself again

i raise my hand to touch the mirror
and i see your face
when your hand touches mine
the smile is mine
i see the teardrop on your cheek
and feel the wetness on mine

i hold the thought
and you hold me
the moment lives
and we too live again.

Thank You Life..

Blame it on the season..everyone around me was getting married..no..i still haven't..but soon..yes..very soon..

Needed to say a lot many thank yous..

Ajit Bhai: Thank You for sending me his number..thank you introducing me to my life..Seems so long ago..was it really April, 25th, this year when you gave me his number and i saved it as unknown..took me longer to send that first text across..May 8th..but my life's changed forever since..Thank You again..Ajit bhai, no words will ever show the gratitude both of us feel..

My Family: For understanding me enough and having that faith in me that i'm right in choosing him as my partner for life.And to have waited this long, going alongwith me in all my "no"s, knowing that i would get the best in life..because i'm your best..For knowing that my happiness is not in fancy weddings and fast cars..but in being loved and accepted..and also standing by me when i say i want a small simple wedding where i marry my life..

All Ex-Wayi-Zees: Specifically the Aars and Esses...For having the perception, or lack of it, to move on..to have knowingly or unknowingly have contributed to creation of persons both of us have become..where we understand the difference between the real and fake..when we understand the meaning of love, acceptance and complete surrender to each other....the reason we didn't even have to meet each other to know that we were meant for each other..for always..for life..the meeting was only the formality where all the pieces fell into place..but both of us were already each other's pieces..waiting to meet..am sure none of you expected us to move on..as i surmise from your current reactions, i guess you were fully expecting us to pine and rot away for you..sorry..but no sorries..we didn't..we were never the people who lost out on life..both of us love life..love ourselves..yes we loved you..with all we had and beyond..but it was you who chose to walk out and walk over..the only apology, sorry, we couldn't be the doormats you wanted us to be..

My friends: Ae to Zee.. Thank You for all the loving wishes , blessings and hugs and suggestions and smiles and jokes and tips..yeah, those ones too.. ;) they are a part of me for always..what would i do without you guys..who i sometimes feel are happier than me for me..yeah..don't go touching wood every two seconds..and no "kaala tika"..spare your monitors my loves..

My brothers and sis: Thank You for shaking me out of my irreverence sometimes..and craziness most of the time..and mostly , thank you for standing by me..

To the family i'm going into: Thank You for accepting me as a part of your family..Ma, for your acceptance and love and that assurance that i will find my roots i've always searched for, Madhu, for making me feel so at home and comfortable from the word go and that soft and sweet voice..Ajaa, for that comforting support and making me feel i'm marrying into a family of substance..feel so proud of you, Rishi: For being that devar i always wanted, are we going to have fights??!!! Kinshuk: still to meet you kid, but as your mom tells me about you, we're somewhere on the same levels..Dad..i'm still to meet..But i know, just know you all are made for me..the family of my dreams..Thank You..Will try to live up to the standards you all have unknowingly set..Thank You..

Yes, i'm getting married..when i do not know..where, no idea..in fact i'm as married to him as i can be..

Finally, Thank You my love..for coming into my life..i know both of us come from places where we were destined to meet and make this magic happen..Thank you for being the person you are..thank you for loving me so unconditionally..thank you for being my support, my strength, my pride, my confidence..Thank You for being my epitome, my dream, my value..Do not know when you became mi amor from unknown..do not know how you stole my heart away..but you have..and now you are my passion, my love, my ecstasy..thank you for understanding me..we'll romance life my love..together..i am complete with you..yes..even without you..i miss you..but it's only a waiting that we'll be together soon..to love, live..to read those books we've read and haven't..most importantly, the book of life...when i hold it and you read from it..your voice..my eyes..when the music is the symphony we make together..the fights, the laughter..the songs..the dreams..ours..

Thank You for being you..
i have wondered my love
how many ways i love you
and every day i fall in love again
i love you in the tightness of you embrace
in the softness of your fleeting touch
i love the way you look at me
love the way you look away
when i catch you doing it
love your voice over the phone
your laughter that gurgles from your throat into my heart
love the way you give me a new name everyday
mi amor, Esposa, mi rio, innamorata,
boie, childwoman, puchku
love, life
cheese, wife
yes, i am all those
you are the compliment and the complimentary

i have fallen into you
and do not know
where i end
and where you begin
i am you and you are me..
Dreams shared..because we have had the same dreams
at different times and different places
shared books..because we revel in the words
and our favourite book is our life
shared moments..because no moment is mine
since we met..it's our moments..
shared life..because the missed beats,,
the rushing blood..the pain..the ecstasy
the acceptance..the content
the trust..the belief..is ours..
our life..
Thank You..for being you..

The limits of dis-integration

No, you will not disintegrate
because there is no limit to you
because you are beyond
the known limits you know
because you are here
because you are now
because you are the past
because you are the future

You will not break
because you are a non entity
because your shape is not the body
because your thoughts are beyond boundaries
because you exist in everyone
and everyone exists in you

you will live even after you're gone
you have no choice
you will breathe till eternity
because your breath exists
from the beginning of the beginning
and will be lived by generations
till the end of the end.


You say you care for no one
can you stop everyone breathing
the air you just breathed out?
Can you wipe the slate clean
and undo your touch
in the many lives you've lived
in this one life?
can you stop the people loving you
can you stop the life around
how can you stop yours?

You say death is your goal
But what if there's another life beyond?
Will you live in torture
and set another goal for it to end?

I do not know how to reach out
because you will not let me
i do not know if i should
because my questions are still unanswered
i do not know if it is time
because my quest is not over yet