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Indecent

He was standing near the hospital entrance waiting for the rains to stop. The sudden rains had brought things to a jam in the city. Since he hadn’t brought an umbrella he couldn’t walk and the traffic was too slow moving to take a cab. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette and the lighter. Out of habit he ran his fingers along the length of the stick before inhaling it in before flicking the lighter open and lighting it up. He hadn’t been smoking for a while, but today he had remembered to pick up the pack and lighter from the drawer in the office up in the hospital. He was feeling tensed, scared for himself and for her. He half had a mind to call her up to check up on her, but he had already done that a couple of minutes back.
The ambulance came in to a screeching stop near the entrance, and the orderlies rushed towards it as two patients were brought out of it. It was a young man and a woman both seemed to be in their early twenties. Both seemed to have been beaten up pretty bad. The boy had bruises and assault marks all over him and seemed to be bleeding from his mouth. His shirt had been ripped apart half way through and he winced every time someone touched him to support him while he was being moved on a stretcher. The girl seemed to have had it worse. She was beaten up as well, but had bite and scratch marks all over her naked body. It wasn’t that she wasn’t covered up, there was a sheet covering her body but her clothes were missing, and the sheet slipped when she was lifted to be put on the stretcher. One of the female nurses stepped back when she was being wheeled through along with him to the emergency room. He threw the half smoked cigarette and put on his apron as he ran through with the stretchers, ordering the orderlies to prep the room and the supplies he would need.
He and the team tried to work the best they could through the two hours that followed, but the girl did not make it through. Apart from the marks visible on her body, she had suffered two broken ribs, severe trauma on the head and her vagina. She had been raped. Gang raped, brutally. She had tried to put up a fight like anyone would do defend themselves, but was over powered by the men who had gone down on her. Turn by turn. The boy it seems had tried to intervene to help her but was beaten up brutally by the same men. He would however go on to live. He was standing still standing there in room slightly taken aback at the condition of the two. He was pulling of the gloves off his hand to wash them when a man came running in. “Please doctor, please save Riya. She is the only daughter I have.  She has been through enough for a life time. Please doctor, please save her!” He didn’t know what to say. Almost robotically he started “I am sorry sir, but we did all that we could. I am afraid the injuries she has had are far too severe.  She has had too much blood loss and I am afraid there is nothing we can do to save her.”
The father kept on speaking as he tugged at his scrubs. He didn’t hear a word of what was being told, but could only see the expressions on his face as it contorted with pain, anger and helplessness. An orderly came in and lead the weeping father out. He walked out after them. A group had gathered outside the room, probably friends and family of the two. He kept hearing while he stood there. It seemed that the boy and girl were engaged, and had gone to a bar in the city to celebrate. They had run in to a rowdy group of men when they were leaving the bar. The same group proceeded to beat them before proceeding to rape the girl. He couldn’t stand there anymore as more people tried to ask him if anything could be done for the girl. He changed into his clothes and took a cab to home. It was early morning now, and she was still sleeping when he came in. He did not wake her up but just lay next to her and kept staring at her till he dozed off to sleep. When he woke up in the evening she was predictably not there. She would have gone to her shift in the hospital but he still called her up to check up on her. He felt a sense of relief when she answered. She had come to know of the case too, and asked him to come and check up on the boy was sleeping now.
He took an hour to get ready, had a long hot bath to come to his senses before he left for the hospital. The police were there in the boy’s room with both the families when he entered.
“Yes officer, I had kissed her before the three of them started calling names at us.”
“What time was it? Were you drinking?”
“It was slightly past eleven, I remember paying the bill around eleven. We had been drinking, yes, but only a beer or two while the match was on.”
“Any other description of the three people who raped her?” He winced when he heard that word. “No, all that I remember of them I have already told the officer who came in just before you.”
“Very well, the bar has a CCTV camera near its entrance where you were attacked; we will try to pull up some useful footage from it. I am deeply sorry for your loss. I understand that you were recently engaged, and you have my word that we will try all we can to catch the men responsible for this. Doctor, will you please come with us, we need to just go through your statements as well.”
He left with the cops to give his statements in a different room. The officer had the presence of mind to not take his statements in front of the families thinking that they would it hurt them even more. He went down to her section to meet her once. He waited for her to come out of a patient’s room. The two of them did not talk much, but just sat together for a while before she went off on her rounds again, and he to the boy’s room.
“Why were you drinking and kissing her on the street? Have you no sense of shame, how to behave decently?”
“Decency, you ask me to behave decently father? So it was indecent in kissing her as we walked out of the bar? Just a small innocent kiss. Yes, that was indecent of me. Do you know what they did to her?”
“Of course I do.”
“You weren’t there when it happened. The three of them were drunk silly. They called us names, and when we walked away, they ran after us. We called for help but there was no one nearby.
They beat me first while one of them held her. She tried to fight as well, but the guy holding her, he pulled her hair and kept slapping her. When they were done with me they went on to rape her. She fought, but they bit her, punched her and one after other raped her.
I had only kissed her, but they stripped her naked and beat her before raping her on a street. Where is the decency in that? Where is the decency in that?”
Everyone went silent. He asked them to leave the room so that the nurse could change his dressings. The nurse was not due for another hour, but he felt that the boy could do with this little comfort.
“You know doctor, I loved her and she loved me back. We were so happy to have been engaged. Even our parents approved of it. I still remember the kiss she gave me that night. Her lips were so soft and moist. I still remember it like an old memory that you keep thinking of, because she always kissed me like that. I don’t think I have the will to live much longer. But I must tell you this because I am told you tried to save her. You did more for her than the rest of the world could. That night we had planned to save up to buy a house for ourselves to movie in to when we would get married.
I still cannot understand why they did this to us. Why do they hate us so much? Ours was an act of love, why did they do this to her…to anyone…”
“Hush now, you need to be quiet and rest. The nurse will be on her way soon. I will give you a dose of sedative to put you to sleep. You need more rest to recover.” He gave him a shot before calling the nurse in.
He was standing near the hospital entrance waiting for the rains to stop. The sudden rains had brought things to a jam in the city. Since he hadn’t brought an umbrella he couldn’t walk and the traffic was too slow moving to take a cab. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette and the lighter. Out of habit he ran his fingers along the length of the stick before inhaling it in before flicking the lighter open and lighting it up. He hadn’t been smoking for a while, but today he had remembered to pick up the pack and lighter from the drawer in the office up in the hospital. He was feeling tensed, scared for himself and for her. He half had a mind to call her up to check up on her, but he had already done that a couple of minutes back.
The boy had taken a blade and slit his wrists in the bathroom. He was dead minutes before his family had noticed that he was taking too long in the bathroom. Today was his funeral. It seemed odd that it should rain today in the winters. He finished smoking his cigarette before he threw the stub on the ground and crushed it with his heel. He pulled up the collars of his jacket before walking off. He was going to attend the funeral.
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Courage to face a lifetime

He was feeling uneasy today, again. He had been feeling so for the last few days now. He stood up from his chair and walked towards his window to slide it open. The view was wonderful. In the night he could see all the houses ahead with their lights as stars on earth. In the far one could make out a power plant with its silhouette of more tiny lights, like a cluster of stars. This was one of his favourite sights, and on a particularly good day a cool breeze would blow across. Today it didn’t have the relaxing feel as it normally did. He looked at the book in his hand and wondered where he had gone wrong.

He was reading Fountainhead when he paused upon a line. “He did not know that he had given someone the courage to face a lifetime..”. He brushed his hair with his hands as he thought of it. Courage. Courage had changed its meaning. It once meant walking across the hall in the dark, or crossing a street full of dogs on his own. Now it meant doing something to come out of where he was. Few weeks ago his mother had seen his bank statements. He had taken a loan some time back that was half way through. He hadn’t told her anything about it. Nor could he explain to her where he had spent it. In his defense he thought, he had taken the loan so that he would not have to take money from his mom for the expenses and investments that were due. But then he had no ways to explain how and where he had spent them away in the past few months, with some thing being bought every other day. It is a good thing he thought, that she hadn’t seen his credit card statements. That would have lead to hell, whatever of it was left to see.

Things were sour between him and his mother before. If they didn’t get along that well before now was a miserable time. He didn’t blame her, she lived alone in a different city, and the fact that he didn’t trust her with things hurt her more. Every discussion would end up in an argument. He wanted to change how things were, but end up walking out of each argument with his fist clenched or biting his lips so that he would not speak something he would end up regretting later. It was not that his mother had raised him in poverty. They were a well to do family, but money was spent only on the necessary things. Now that he had a good job, the sudden influx of money made him spend at things he wouldn’t have spent before. Now that he thought of it, that money was only as good as the person who was controlling it. This is not who he wanted to be. He thought himself to be great, and now had only great mistakes.

A week later after the first argument with his mother, he was almost run over by a car. He was walking around the park for some fresh air with his earphones on, trying to be away for some time. He didn’t pay attention to the car that was coming his way while crossing the road, but was lucky that the driver braked in time. It did give him ideas. He walked back to his home and picked up the chef’s knife. He had always admired it, all 8 inches of it with its smooth sharp blade. He was particularly fond of it as it cut vegetables of all sorts with great speed. He wondered if it could cut through his veins too with it. Maybe that would a way to end it all. He would not burn out as he had always thought, but would silently bleed through in the night. To be found later in the morning when his room mate would come back from his job. He took a moment for it to sink in, before the the horror of the very idea of taking his own life struck him. The knife fell with a clang as he began to take in deep breaths. The idea that he could even think of something like this was revolting.

A month had now passed since that incident. He got back to reading from that line. He thought the line was right. He needed courage, courage to face a lifetime. And he had to find that courage in himself.

This is in response to WEEK #53 (5-20-12 to 5-26-12): Pick a Line from a Book and Write from There. My entry is based on a line from The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

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Written in Water

There he lay
His name written in water
And the waves made from the name ebbed away,
Touching the lass sitting little away on the bank,
Writing her own name in water
And then watch her name ebb away too.

She sat there too
Her hand still in water
Now just moving
And making random waves in it.
The blowing wind catches her attention
For it reminds her of a familiar scent,
Making her wish she could smell it again.
A smile escapes her lips,
Stars light up in here eyes,
And an odd form of beating begins in her breast.

There she lay, her hand in water
Writing a name not her own.
She continues to stare in her own reflection
Even after the name ebbs away
The one closer to her than her own.
She takes a deep breath
So full of passion; so full of hope
Giving her the strength
To sit there and gaze at the water
And find a face in it not her own.

A rustle in the leaves and the sound of some steps
And she turns around all euphoric
For her wait is now over
She puts her arms around him
And they share each other’s essence.

There he lay
His name written in water
And the waves made from the name ebbed away.
He wondered who theses waves
Would touch this time

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For you

If you’re reading this, then this is for you…

———-For you———–
Flickering every now and then,
Your eyes are like the fireflies that dance
To the joy of finding a partner.
Joy is elusive of you,
The tears that trickle down your cheeks
Tear and pull your skin like the maelstroms.
The clouds shall move in unison
Flock over to where you are
To kill the winds with their stagnancy.
The rain will then pour
Healing you with every drop
That shall caress your soul.
The rains will come for you.

When the night grows thick and dark,
Cocooning you in a sap of tranquility
Making the air too thick to breathe,
Suffocating you in your own breath.
The moon shall shine bright,
Its gleam subliming the envelop.
The moon will come out for you.
When the darkness of the night covers all
Encompassing all around you,
Laying difficulties in your path
The stars will shine brighter
Illuminating your path of Destiny
And guide you like they did the Three Kings.
The stars will shine for you.

When storms are heading your way,
And the skies prepare their arrows
And let their electric weapons through,
As the thunders and rumbles begin their vociferous march
Coming forward in waves,
Violating the borders of home.
Causing the doors and windows to clatter in fear
The sun will shine bright,
Its rays purging the ominous clouds
Creating an aura of protection around you.
The sun will rise for you.
Only For you.

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Utopia

Utopia, The word brings a flood of thoughts and imagery to me. For me Utopia is a place and time where everything is seemingly perfect. Where all senses are passions, when being yourself is a joy. I can imagine many such futures.

The wind is blowing against my face and is caressing my hair as I stand on the top of ledge on a beach. I can still smell the sweet fragrance from the bed of flowers behind me, while my eyes feast on the beautiful array of colours that lies there. Rows of plants, flowers and fruits decorate the patch of land. Bees dance around the flowers intoxicated by the essence of the nectar, and tiny furry squirrels run up and down the trees squeaking merrily. The birds fly to their perch and sing songs; their music so touching and lifting that even has the flowers shaking their petalled appendages in rhythm.

I can feel the wind’s gusts as I spread my hands and take a step ahead off the ledge. It’s a big fall and I land on the sands of the beach. I see a figure sitting there running her hands in the foam of the oncoming waves. She turns and smiles at me and waves me over. I walk towards to my love. She’s beautiful. Her long brown locks come down in curls near shoulders and go all the way to her waist. The sparkle in her deep green eyes is followed by mysterious blinking of her eyes. As we get nearer she gives me a mischievous smile and splashes water on my face. The cool water hits me and as if it were a carrier of her contagious mischief I start splashing water on her too. She gets up and rolls in to my arms. Her essence is invigorating and I slide my arms around her waist pulling her towards me. We stare in each others’ eyes and something takes us over and we kiss, her moist, soft lips providing comfort to me. She smiles and we sit down and let the waves drench our bodies, enjoying every wave together as it comes.

Utopia is a world I believe that cannot exist, or rather we as humans do not deserve. We are way too diverse, too different to achieve it. Everyone has their different views and if those are different than the ones we have we tend to despise them. All of a sudden what matters more is the colour of the skin, the god we pray to, the place where we were born, or with whom we want to go for a hump ride and not the fact that we are all god damned humans. Instead of being amazed by the diversity of abilities we can exhibit we tend to turn against each other for those differences. I can imagine a one man, one rule, and one empire scenario. A situation where one individual or a set of individuals control the world. But then won’t it be forced on those who choose to differ and again that would be no different than tyranny or dictatorship. How about a no rule scenario? Total freedom would lead to total anarchy. With freedom comes order, something we as a species tend to lack. And we have a problem with authority. Whenever someone rises, good or bad, wrong or right people get ready to make them fall. We have turned the very blessings of knowledge and choice in to curse. We have knowledge, and we continue to significantly add to it, but not to excel. We make choices and more recently we tend to make the wrong ones, well at least the ones that make the most damages.

I know I sound hypocritical for the very least, may be even a bit of a misanthrope. Better embrace the reality than deny it. It’s a dream that is used as hope that someday we will survive ourselves, our choices, and our very root nature.

So yeah, I was supposed to write my little bit about Utopia here. I did start off with the little utopian dream of mine but then it got me thinking, and I got another dream, a coin flip should you say. Utopia is a vision, a dream of a perfect or near perfect reality. If we are to make Utopia a reality if not for ourselves then at least for our children and theirs we have a long way to go. I’ve always believed in miracles. It’s only a miracle that today I am writing this, and you are reading this. Let’s hope for a big one.

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A letter in the present to the future

Tejaswee Rao died some days ago. She is the daughter of the woman known to some of us as the Indian Homemaker after fighting the painful dengue for quite some days. A bright soul, one of her last blog posts was a letter to her future daughter. It did make me think that yes, life is quite unpredictable. We never know that I like anyone else might one fine day just cease to be, whether it may be after a lengthy battle with an affliction, a swift death in some accident or just sleep never wake up in this world again. So like her, I write this letter to you my future love, knowing that maybe you’re somewhere out there reading this. We may not know each other now or maybe are acquaintances ready to get reacquainted as more significantly. Maybe we’re already in love and this is something that I think that you must read because I wrote it for you. This is a dream I had of you one night. I can still remember details of it vividly, except your face. Try as much I may, I still cannot recall how or who you liked like.

I can see a meadow materialize in front of me. There’s a mixture of fresh green and drying yellow grass around. You sit rested along the trunk of a tree with a wide canopy which stands near the centre of the meadow. As you sit in the shade of the tree, pillars of light cut through the leaves and graze the grass around, creating an aura of illustration. Your long hair dances with the currents of the gentle breeze quite like the blades of the grass around you. You’re lost from the world in the book that you’re reading barely noticing that I am walking towards you. You look hauntingly beautiful, drowned in your care free innocence while you’re smiling at something which you’ve read in the book. It’s a weird smile as if something has dawned upon you, making you realize something simple. It’s fitting though, maybe sometimes we’re meant to realize things and not know them. You put the book down momentarily and reach for a cigarette from your pocket. You light it up and let the first puff out quite like the long breaths you let out after inhaling the smells of the fresh flowers. I pause in my approach to just stand there and let the sight consume me when our eyes meet after you turn around to see me standing there. You lips spread in to a smile and you beckon me nodding gesture as I walk briskly and come sit next to you. You keep the book aside and stretch your legs in front of you. I just sit there and gaze in to your eyes for some time when you blow a long puff of smoke in my face. You can’t help but in to a spell of chirpy laughter as I lay down on the grass with my head on your thighs. It’s by default that I stretch out my hand to caress your naked legs while you ruffle my hair with one hand while continuing to smoke with the other. I observe the patterns your lips make as you remove the cigarette to blow some smoke away. “I can’t understand about the poison symbol, smoking doesn’t kill you but it sure does screw you up and increase the probability of death by a hundred folds. Yet people go on to leave the full stretch of their lives while some fight a lost battle with their cancer stricken half dead bodies” is what I speak as continue to gaze at your lips. You stop playing with my hair while I still continue caressing your legs, I observe that your bite your lower lip for some time and while you release that red lip from the between your teeth you smack me affectionately on the head and say “Idiot!”

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Generation Gap

Nineteen years old today are different from nineteen years old twenty years ago. Twenty years is a long time, but things changed in many ways that people didn’t foresee or imagine to. The sudden advance of technology and globalization brought many changes to the industry but also closer to home. So contacting someone close doesn’t require one to wait in queue for half an hour and send one line messages, one simply has to flip out a tiny piece of plastic and circuits and chat their way to their heart’s content. While at the same time children find more time to spend with their mobiles and iPods than they want to spend with their close ones. Women took great time and effort in cooking food for the family, and now we see people just open cans, pour the contents in an oven and five minutes later you’ve got a meal for four.  The increase in the availability of such items of reduced requisite labor was however brought so soon, that the coming generation was adopted to it, while the original generation couldn’t catch up to it, which leads to different foundations of personalities for them
The interesting thing which is beginning to appear here is the change of dynamics in relationships. People born and brought up twenty years ago associated with people. Their priority was how their relationships were defined with people, which is the reason why they were more docile and submissive towards their parents, and teachers. It’s not that people don’t respect their elders in the times of today; it’s just that they’ve grown more vocal and wish to have their opinions heard so that they can be treated as equals. However the other­­ generation grew up conditioned as the “people” types wherein they followed the defined boundaries between generations which were never meant to be crossed.
On the other hand the current generation has grown associating with objects. It’s always been the things that they must have; goals that they must accomplish, putting their wants and needs ahead of the people around them. The said needs need not be physical or material such as the wants and carving for objects, but also transcend to being talked to as an individual, to be heard, to be followed. This is the reason why they cross the generation barrier and talk affront to the teachers and parents to get this done. Due to this difference of foundations there tends to be a feeling of disrespect from both sides at times. One believes that the new generation doesn’t trust their experience and respect and that they’ve strayed away by associating with said objects, while the other feels left out and disgruntled.
Hence to accomplish these wants they turn to people who will be able to provide for them: people of their own age. This is also the reason that it can be seen people tend to ‘hang out’ more with their own age groups than the time they spend with family. It’s more about going out with friends, taking a trip on the weekend and spending vacations goofing around each others’ house than may be take the traditional trip to their ancestral home. It’s more about how ‘cool and awesome’ their friends are, how much they want to be and how their parents and teachers are ‘not getting’ them.  
First there’s the rule, then there’s the exception to the rule, which is why it feels nice to observe exceptions to these relationships as well. Quite a few parents and teachers have started to understand this aspect of their children’s lives, and they choose not to drastically change them but to accept them for who they are and try to make some good out of it. Part of this understanding leads them to talk openly about issues, like the troubles they’re facing, their take on certain things. There are times when they are the best friends, having fun when nothing is there to do, a beacon of hope of in the vast sea of life, and a guiding moral compass should their own ever falter.  At the same time there’s a change coming in the new generation as dwell. Not only have they become more respectful of the experience and views of the older generations, they at time actively seek it for guidance. A sense of mutual respect and appeal is seen in many ways where the parents seek the advice of children when it comes to the choice of items like electronics, or maybe even the color of the walls.
So what we see here is a mutually symbiotic relationship, where in the generation which has people as the foundation of their core values now receives respect, and the generation which has objects as their core receives not just material objects but also psychological ones which doesn’t make them feel left out. Yes things are not as picture perfect as the way we see in tele vision series like The Brady Bunch, or may be as grand as the Sooraj Barjatia movies, where big families often come together come across vast differences in to one single unit. No, those are movies and series, and you get paid to act and say things in them. Real life has different issues, different stories, different scales of how this goes and how all the little things which we overcome to bring two generations together. How we appreciate that it’s not just camera cell phones, and laptops that matter but also the people who guide us in our lives and listen to us and when we need them the most. That it’s about building bridges and reaching out to people with different set of minds.

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Guilt

There are many emotions and feelings that drive us human beings. Some for the better, some for the worse. Amongst them is guilt. This is the feeling you get when you feel yourself responsible or are made to feel responsible for unfortunate turn of events. There may be many reasons for one to feel this. May be someone failed to achieve a personal goal, may be they didn’t get good grades, may be they let someone down. The causes and effects of guilt can be many. I’ll tell you about mine. Or at least try to.

Given my own set of talents and skills with some above average I don’t have a great academic record. My parents, teachers and some friends have always cited this and tried to make me feel about this. I guess the lowest point was when I flunked two subjects in the second year of my college. Sure Mom was mad, it was the talk of the day in the staff, friends were taken back, and even I was sullen for two days. Not guilty mind you. Academics never interested me that much. Sure I know most of the things that are taught and made to be learned. That’s the whole point of going to school and college. But somehow I never got interested in exams. I mean I know that if I didn’t prepare well for the exams, I was bound to not excel it. I just did enough to get through fine. This was echoed by a former principal who called mom to the office and said that I was only studying MINIMUM during the exams to pass. When mom told me of it, I think I sported a big grin. During the time I failed in college and went all sullen it was not out of guilt. I was thinking that I could get so miserable that I didn’t clear two subjects that I didn’t particularly like. And the fact that I’d have to do it all again, which effectively laid waste to six months worth of time that had to be devoted to a subject. So I got down to it, and cleared all my subjects within time having taken them as extra exam only subjects. Maybe it has to do with the fact that all my preparations for it, which were a known conscious decision.

Or another thing happens with the times I talk with some of the ‘elder’ people, be it in our outside of my family relations. Some people don’t like how forthcoming I can get at times. I have told teachers to their face when I believe that they’re wrong. When discussions get interesting and I get to say my say, I am told that I should treat them with respect and should feel guilty for my words. I cannot get how the only criteria for respect should be age. And why should I feel guilty about not following it. Their standards not mine.

Many times shame and guilt are along the same lines. When I was young, innocent and gullible and teachers used to ask me don’t you have any shame, I was in a dilemma. You see I didn’t know the meaning of the word shame. So when I said yes, they tried to invoke the feeling of shame and guilt in me which I couldn’t feel as much as I tried. So in turn when I said no, oh there was a whole lot of trouble. Somehow that feeling has remained stuck to me ever since.

When it comes to work it’s a different thing. Some time ago we had an internal calibration and preparation audit for an audit that was supposed to take place sometime around late December. So when our auditors came for it and we went to different workstations to get audited, some results and observations showed lack of preparedness. I was directly responsible for some. I had multiple things to get done and prioritized accordingly. Sure it turned out to be wrong, and that I had to hear something for it, I am not against that. I had to make some choices, I made the wrong ones. I can live with that. My immediate boss was also along with me as an auditee that time. SO the auditors then said that it was understandable that there was lack of preparedness as I am new and would have issues managing the shift operations and the preparedness and they slowly turned some things on him. That really got to me. That’s where the guilt began creeping in. I mean I screwed up, so why should I be excused for the reason that I am new. I am new so what, that does not make me any less accountable for my work. And then that some things ended up on my boss. Why should others be blamed or held for my work? If my work is to be reflected on, then it should be me. My boss has shown great trust in me by taking forward steps in guiding me to the ways of the work and lets me take responsibilities head on when I want to. And after all that if my lack of work should somehow make him to look bad, then I feel guilty.

My work should be a reflection of me. My bads should not necessarily reflect on my boss. Saying that would reduce my own accountability. I may be new at work but that does not excuse me for not getting work done on time. I may give my best at times but if it doesn’t get the work done, that I have not given enough. And if I have not given enough I have not succeeded. And should the shadow of my failure be cast upon someone else, I’ll feel guilty.

The beautiful thing about guilt is that try as much as you may as long as the said person doesn’t feel a gut wrenching remorse about his or her inadequacies from the inside you cannot make them feel guilty. There’s whole big factor of the said person’s own standards.

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Money

They say that money can help you buy books but not knowledge.
They say that money can help you buy gifts but not love.
They say that money can help you buy a house but not build a home.
They sat that money can help you buy a bed but not a content sleep.

They think that what they say is true, what they don’t realize is that they don’t know how true they are.

It’s is true that money can get me books but will not buy me knowledge. But then how would I manage to learn all that I have learnt till now without the books that I have read so far. I couldn’t imagine to have as much knowledge that I have today whether it be in depth or width to have been there had I had to discover and invent myself. It would not have been possible without the books that I bought with money.

It is true that money can get me gifts but not love. Money lets me get gifts to express my love and care. I know that gifts and money are not the only way one can express love. Love is also about appreciating someone and being there for some one. Money provides me with leverage in this matter. I can buy flowers for my loved one, travel across cities to be with her using the tickets I buy with money. (And for the record I am single, and for now there is no such person in my life, but if there were then the above would hold true for me as it holds true for many others.)

It is true that money can help me build a house but not home. Money can let me buy all the things I need to ensure that my loved ones feel safe, protected and comforted in the house so that I can finally call it home. It is only with money that money that I can buy items to cater their needs and wants.

It is true that money can buy me a bed but not a sleep of content. To sleep and then wake up with a feeling of rejuvenation and content, one needs to sleep over a clear mind, should have worked hard to realize the feeling of relaxing after that. Money can get me more comfortable bed, softer pillows, cozier blankets so that can enjoy the hard work I did even more.

Money is a tool of exchange between people so that they can have what they couldn’t have had otherwise. It is highly improbable to imagine us now as self sufficient. The clothes that we are wearing right now, the food that we ate today, the computers on which we are reading this, the internet which we used to access it, the chairs or beds on which we are sitting right now, would not have been possible if each of us had to do it all by ourselves. It was all possible through an exchange of goods and services, thoughts and ideas, all through the exchange of money. Think of it, can you harvest your own food, sew your own clothes, design and fabricate complex computer hardware, code the required software, use the force of your hands to change the shapes of logs in to chairs, raise buildings to sit in, all by yourself?

There are many people who believe in the so called saying that money is the root of all evil. What they don’t realize is that like all means of exchange it can be used to make unfair exchanges as well. It’s not the code of exchange but actually those who choose to deal with it unfairly that should be accounted for. Money is proof is that there is someone producing something somewhere, Money is the appreciation you show when you wish to take that thing which you else wise would not have been able to. Money is appreciation of that person’s talent and hard work that went in to making that thing or providing that service which you needed. Money is what has brought as this ahead in world today, and yet there are people who say that money is the root of evil. They need a reality check.

There are times when we associate certain things and emotions of value with money. Yes money can help you attain that but money cannot account for improper evaluations. People think that if they earn enough money, and build a big enough house, put in a separate room for everyone, put all sorts of things in it like TV, refrigerator, computer and furniture and have it painted nicely it will become a home. Money can help you get that, but then again it is you who has to bring the home feeling in it. Work for it. Money can buy me stacks of books, and computers and internet but I have to sit down and study to gain that knowledge, I need to grasp it and understand it. Money will let me buy chocolates and flowers, let me take my lady love out for movies, or picnics and where not but then what matters is that I be there for her when she needs me and I appreciate her what she is.

You see it all boils down to the core value that money can help you get opportunities, how and when you grasp it and what you make of it depends on you.

Posted on by Santulan · 2 Comments

The last 12 hours

When you’re in love you want to spend all your possible time with that someone special. You want to wake up the first thing in the morning to the wonderful sight of that person close to you. It was the same with him, except that now he was regretting the fact that he would have to wake up. How he wished that this sleep would last forever and the morning wouldn’t follow. They were deeply in love with each other and yet today she was leaving. It was hard on both of them and both of them were dealing with it differently, both of them had different and yet same thoughts to deal with. They had slept together for the last time, simply cherishing each other’s comforting presence. He wanted to stay with her the entire day but the office required him for an important meeting for a new project.

As always she was the one to get up first and by the time he woke up and got ready she had breakfast ready. They had had a long discussion on to how they would stay in touch with each other once today found an end.

“I want to you to at least send me two mails per week, nothing much. You surely can do that.”

She didn’t say anything. She never did speak when she knew he would know the answer.

“I am serious. If you don’t I’ll come over and kill you. I mean it.”

Who was he kidding; he couldn’t lay a finger on her if his life depended on it. He did need to impress his need to stay in touch with her. Why did she have to leave in the first place?

“Don’t worry I’ll send you your two mails. We’ll try and stay in touch.”

Here he was uttering non sense and yet she understood how much he loved her, how desperate he was to have her

“Well get up now, you have to be in time for your meeting. Don’t worry I’ll be here when you come back”

He hoped she would, God only knew what’d happen to him if he came home and found it empty. They got up and she walked him to his car. She gave him a good luck kiss and some how it felt like a good bye kiss already. He started his car and his eyes on the rear view mirror and watched her till he had to take the turn that soon came. He had almost an entire day to go through. The meeting went fine; he got promoted to the head of the new project. Slowly but surely it was evening and he left his office. Half way through he pulled his car over and called her.

“Are you there at home?” She could be unpredictable and he couldn’t take not seeing her for the last time.

“Yes”

“Give me ten minutes; I am half way over already.”

She greeted him with a tight hug when he entered.

“How are you doing?” He asked her once she let go of him. She never said things for the sake of it.

She had made his favorite Rajma Chawal as he had thought.

“How was your day today? Would you like to take a bath first?” She then proceeded to the dining table. She knew his answer already. They sat down to eat.

“Went nice, Got promoted to the head of the new project.”

She looked away. Maybe it was the tears in her eyes that could come out any time, maybe it was the pain in his. Maybe it was both. He looked at the neat pile of his clothes she had done for him. Doing his clothes was like therapy for her. He woke a night before at two to find her arranging his clothes in the cupboard. She always said that she liked his smell. Who would do it for him now? Who would she do it for now? Who would she cook their favorite dishes now?

“Let’s leave. It’s raining and getting late. Please there is no need to come along.” However he insisted on coming along. They got in to her car and she began to soon maneuver her car through the almost blinding rain. Luckily her place was a few hours away. He sat there stiff like a child with a puffed face, and was careful not touch her. She noticed that and took his hand and smelled it before gently kissing it like she always did. They had reached the bus stop and it was time for him to get off and let her go.

“You promised that you’d write to me at least two times a week.” She nodded.

“Give me this bit of solace I need to live.”It was getting late and he would have to leave now.

“Remember to take care of yourself and don’t smoke again.”

“I will if you keep reminding me. If you ever need me, shout and I’ll be there.” He hadn’t smoked since she was with him and he wasn’t going to now that she was almost away. It would remind him of her not being there. Everything else would too. He got out of the car. They saw each other for some time before she nodded and began to leave. He had begun to cry, his tears masked by the rain. He had held it back ever since he had got in to the car. He couldn’t let her see him cry. May be she knew that too and couldn’t see him. That’s why he saw a drop of tear roll down her cheek too before she drove off.

He began his walk back instead of taking the bus, hoping that someone may hit him on the way home. He didn’t know if he could live without her.