Tomorrow

I really wish was another day. Mumbai is reeking of her millions, pushing and jostling with each other, for the little extra space in this overcrowded city and the stench is everywhere. Putrid, vengeful, unforgiving. The stench is creeping up on us.

I wait desperately for the rain. I want it to wash away my fears, my heartbreaks, my desires and return me to innocence. The Buddha was right, attachments are at the root of all dissatisfaction.

I guess the whiff of sadness in every rare gust of wind is trying to get to us, wipe away our hopes for a better tomorrow but in the ensuing battle of human endurance, we are becoming harder. The road rages increase, so does the helplessness in crowded trains. Mumbai is reaching the boiling point. It’s just the beginning of May.

I want my Kalboishakhi.

Probably India is too. Without the distraction caused by mouse hunts from the white house, India suddenly had her new issue to protest on. And the intelligentsia quickly split to take up sides. When we used to debate in school, we used to look at a topic and depending on various factors and take a side. They could be as random as “I want to go against the crowd”, “I want to speak for the motion as it’s lucky for me.” “You know, that idiot from LMB is speaking for the motion. I have to take him on.” Only rarely it would be, “I believe in the stance I am taking”. So as I watched over a month the innumerable television debates, I could sense going back to Calcutta Debating Circuits and a hushed audience. In a deep baritone voice, the teacher announces, “Your topic for the day is…”

“In any society when a combination of sclerotic bureaucracy and raw incompetence has caused all the cogs and wheels to seize up, the black market is the only lubricant.” Icon – Forsyth

Mind seeks its distractions in the seemingly scripted debates. But the mind is not the only body part we are worried about. There’s a searing pain sometimes near the heart. And you wonder, whether the biology books in Class 8 were correct in their description of the heart as a pump. If it’s a machine, then why does it pain so much? Why does it worry so much? Why does it cry so much? Was that a bit cheesy? Maybe.

One day I believe the rains will come. They always do. That’s the predictability of the ever changing seasons. However little or however devastating the monsoons will be, there shall always be the first kiss of rain. Whether it is a kiss of life or kiss of death, few can predict and that’s the beauty of this unpredictability.

I wish you were here to share the rain with me. But we can no longer cross the chasm between us. Guess, the bridge was never meant to be across forever.

And as I wait for the rains, I wish you this song

You deserve the sunshine and not the rain

You deserve the rainbow you've had enough pain

I wanna see you win

And get it all

Hey I never see you fall

Cant you see

Waiting for the rain

Cant you see

Waiting for the rain

The Other Side

Death. We all wonder about it sometime or the other. And some of us worry just a little more than others. He belonged to the latter. Death was always the most intriguing part of life to him. He often wondered about life after death. Does the soul really exist? Is there an afterlife?

To him death was romantic, comparable to the very best of Keat’s poetry. To him it was like standing on the edge of a cliff, watching the thin line that divided life and afterlife. He loved the feeling. He knew in death lay the glory, the answers to life’s many problems. And in death lay the beginning of many more. Yet, he loved death.

He always wanted the end to come announced, so that he could look at it in the eye and embrace it like a long lost brother. The transition – it should be peaceful. And then one day it happened.

Death stared at him in the eye. And unlike everything he had imagined, his life was not flashing before his eyes. There was no darkness that was slowly descending. All he could see was a light. Something in him fought; fought like there was no tomorrow. He reached out for the light, it was near; yet it was beyond his reach. He reached up, searched for a word. For the last time he moved up to call out - and kept on fighting.

As strong hands pulled him up, he realized how beautiful life was. How greater it was compared to death. Life, it wants to live. And that is the greatest truth of them all.

(Based on a true story)