FADING CLOSENESS...

...balance on its own without his walking stick which he carved himself from the Gamari from the nearby jungle. Now all I hear about them is through phone, mostly after months... why old men and women of the village are the forgotten ones? They remember people who went to the towns and speak of them with proudness to their neighbours during the lazy afternoons outside their bamboo verandas... I am so engrossed in my studies, so are my parents with their works and life, and I see the clear line of FADING CLOSENESS that time is drawing beween the village and town, between my grand-parents and us(my family), between the forgotten and the forgetful, between promises and conditions... Now-a-days, people shed tears when their dog dies and whisks off with few words when a distant relative dies. Because the closeness matters... And today I am realising how far I have gone away from my village and my people of the village. I guess it's time I should go back as the country girl and live my promises of the past...

FADING CLOSENESS...

"My grand-father is the oldest man in his village..." I proclaim to my friends during a discussion based on longetivity. "He is about 90+" I add with a haughty air. "90+ age is a ripe age, people usually die before turning that age!" a fren adds. Inside my mind I am thinking... that the time is not far that he will leave us soon. Why haven't I thought about it these few years back? I remember myself sobbing at the thought of him walking with his failing eyes in the treacherous muddy terrains of the village during my childhood when mom put me to bed telling her childhood stories of the village where she grew up. I used to tell him as a kid that I'll grow up, become a doctor and operate his eyes. It made him really happy I could tell it from his cackling laughters that came out from his tobacco lace teeth. But years have rolled on... we moved to the towns, but they remained there with their life without any advancing changes. The only change was his increasing feebleness in his stork body which now can't...

THRESHOLD OF MY DREAMS...

I wouldn't refrain myself from putting it forward that 'my heart is like a fluttery butterfly!'. My eyes falls in love with the strangest of things and ideas, many-a-times leading my bouncing and leaping heart to new paths leaving behind my original track. I always think, wonder and search every minute of aliveness what I am suppose to do, which path I am suppose to follow and which career choices should I make? There are hundreds choices in life, we are but our choices. No matter how much my heart wanders around, I know what I always wanted to be! A MEMORY MAKER! Yeah I always wanted to be someone who records the memories, and I do it by writing. There are moments when we give up, situations when we lose faith in following our dreams, but the thing that feeds our soul will always emerge... at the oddest of times. I got to keep this THRESHOLD OF MY DREAMS alive and the oil of my dreams burning! A I must not forget that this is my only life & God knows whether I will be able to dream again in my next life!

The Girl Who Wears The Crown!

In a recent personality development class, we had the opportunity to interact with Garima Parnami, a model, best known for her face in the cover of Fair and Lovely, a hugely commercial fairness cream in India. She asked us " Do you know what's the difference between the girl walking in the streets and the girl wearing the crown on the stage?" We remained silent. "The girl walking on the street may have the fabulous body, best skin and best hair...but she is no one, just someone with all the beauty but nothing overpowering inside her! On the other hand, the girl wearing the crown may be someone who has a crooked teeth, un-proportionate body and undermining circumstances in her life! But what differentiates the two is the factor COURAGE. Courage to rise against your imperfections, courage to be who you are and courage to face the world!" At the end she concluded by whisking a smile "So the next time you are afraid just kick it out of your system! You can't afford to be shy in your life if you want to win!"

DETERMINATION OF SOIL TEXTURE

Soil texture is qualitatively determined by RAPID FIELD METHOD which involves rubbing the soil between the thumb and fingers. In this process proficiency is gained through practice and making comparison with samples of known textural class determned by some quantitative method. Steps fortexture determination: 1. A small quantity of the air dried soil is moistened with water and mixed thoroughly on a glass porcelain dish to form a soft ball then worked out until stiff and sqeezed out between the thumb and the forefinger. 2. The feel to fingers is of forming ball stickiness or grittiness whether forming soil ribbons or merely crumbling upon sqeezing are observed. The sample is assigned following textural class:

~WORLDLY THOUGHTS~

I had this imperative drive to write this today! Was sitting with my legs curled up on my study table trying to concentrate words written on my copy. It's been more than 17 years of looking into such pages and my handwriting scribbled on it, wondering what next... what goals, dreams or whatever... My mind is lost in the worldly thoughts, all the time in my life, I was like "will do it later" and now I find myself losing interest and drive in things that seemed most exciting at one point! Then how do I create myself when I feel the dreams fading away... Once, most important thing can't even give me a twitch now, guess my soul is worn out and knows all, knows that nothing stays. I feel myself standing stiff in a street where people don't have time to stop and see, I find myself staring at the horizon and my thousand thoughts milling across the crowd... How do I live my dreams again?

LIFE IS A REALITY SHOW

Life is a reality TV show, each moment you are being watched and evaluated by te master judge: God. Each step will determine your next achievement and pitfalls and the winners are those... -Who are true to themselves and live their dreams -Who earn more, save more and give more as well -Who can attract more attention and can influence more people -Who share a rock solid bond with family and friends -Who don't get carried away by temptations and conspirations -Who are always a rolemodel for others and a genuine man So, keep in mind that LIFE is not a dress rehearsal but that one chance in front of the examiners. Make sure that you give your best shot and voice your best opinions while the camera is rolling....

LIFE IS A REALITY SHOW

Life is a reality TV show, each moment you are being watched and evaluated by te master judge: God. Each step will determine your next achievement and pitfalls and the winners are those... -Who are true to themselves and live their dreams -Who earn more, save more and give more as well -Who can attract more attention and can influence more people -Who share a rock solid bond with family and friends -Who don't get carried away by temptations and conspirations -Who are always a rolemodel for others and a genuine man So, keep in mind that LIFE is not a dress rehearsal but that one chance in front of the examiners. Make sure that you give your best shot and voice your best opinions while the camera is rolling....

BE OUTRAGEOUS

It's time to be outrageous. What do you have to lose? YOu don't have to impress anyone. It's time to please yourself, to celebrate who you are and to be uninhibitedly yourself. "Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: It's good to be silly at the right moment." says HORACE. Forget being sensible, appropriate and grown-up for a moment and do something outrageous!

Being in the Position to Give

Sometimes life can be really confusing, what we see is not true and what we don't see is true. I come across a lot of average people working their way up to something, sometimes most of them just following the same old routes already taken up by someone. Amidst the crowd, I often ask myself: What do you want? Where do you want to go? What do you want to be? Sometimes the answer is close by and sometimes I am clueless. The point is, actually the answer is always there, lurking beneath your heart or suppressed inside your thoughts. It's just that the world's such a distracting and artifcial place that blinds us with it's lucrative ideas and beliefs! "If it's for you, your heart will know. If it's not for you, your heart will know too." All you have to do is live in this world with it's ways, but not letting this world change the world inside you, which is the guiding compass of your individuality. You know, all I want from life is "being in the position to give." Give back what you have taken....

Will you be successful? (Reflections)

Sometimes I feel that maybe "successful" could be the ability to have a relaxed mind at all the defining moments, being able to choose the right things and make good decisions, being there for your friends and family. Success could be being nice and caring enough to be able to make the important persons in your life feel important. It could be the abundance of laughter and togetherness of the person you value, to be able to smile and laugh when you want to do so. To be the reason behind your parent's happiness. Guess I took a long-winding of words rather than just arriving at the point that: Success to me is love, happiness and security. And now if I have to answer the question..... I never know but I will strive for it as long as I live.

Will You Be Successful?

Lately in a conversation with a close friend we suddenly ran into futuristic talks and he asked me a question which caught me completely off-guard! He asked me: Will you be successful? I couldn't gather any instant answer because I was clueless beneath. Though the conversation carried onto other things, I was still seeking answer to that question at the back of my mind. Will I be successful? OK how I define success in my heart? When I was a kid success was having the best Barbie toys to play and show my friends. When I was in high school, success for me was securing the highest marks in the whole class. When I joined college, success was to top the class. I thought winning competitions would relax my restless and wandering heart, but know I am wrong. Having done and achieved what I perceived to be success, I have no clue what "successful" is? Is it making money? Being famous? Being responsible and sought after? Being in the position to give? Being the key person?

SLEEPLESS

It's gonna be 3 am in the morning and I am still awake. Is this the change I was talking about? This is supposedly something that I never wanted! I wonder if I have changed for the good or the bad? There is this little sadness inside my heart tonight which is keeping me awake. I hope it passes soon and at the end I see something marvellous! I am done with mysteries. I no longer love mysteries, infact I hate it now. I want to see everything in a clear plate! Things are all webbed up in complexities, I just need to find a simple way out..... ~Trying to clear my mind of this sleeplessness~

THINGS STARTED TO MATTER...

She sat upright on her bed, her eyes running fast through the words on the mail, which sent a stream of happiness running through her body leaving a warm flush on her cheeks. She read it again. She ran outside her room into the dark night and out of nowhere she grabbed her toothbrush and began humming through her bubbled mouth as her body swayed from side to side. Spat out her bubbly toothpaste loud and clear! Now she started walking towards the road and an invisible pump was under her feet that sprang up her body a little higher as she jump and ran. She smiled looking at the dark cloudy sky, which was moonless and starless. Totally dark. She knew that beneath those dark clouds, somewhere the moon was still shining and the stars still twinkling...~ beneath the clouds ~ The next morning the world was all new. The clouds gathered up across her window more white and the mountains more blue. Things start to matter...

A THOUSAND SIGHS OF A DYING MAN (2)

Did the boy who became a man remembered the touch of his father's calloused hands that guided his footsteps through the paths in the village shadowed by dark mountains? Did he ever thought about his younger sister who got married in an another village,who now got abandoned by her husband and works day and night in that village of darkness and isolation fenced by mosquitoes and thick forest! And what happened to the brother who had 15 children? Was he able to feed them and give them schooling from his little shop where he sold expired canned fishes n pickles? He didn't know that his brother sat in the shop that stood on the village cross-road hoping that someday his younger brother who became a big man in the big city would stop by and come to visit him... A thousand sighs passed the dying man as he took his last breathe from his broken heart realising that he never remembered what he had, where he belonged to and what he should have done after he set off for his journey to the new world of pride!

A THOUSAND SIGHS OF A DYING MAN (1)

Now in between his sleepless nights, he wonders that life gave him so much... 1.Time: To fulfill his dreams. 2. Love: To pass each day with happiness and fulfillment 3. Money: To share with the poor and the needy. 4. Family: To take away the daily dusts settled on his mind. 5. A Loving Child: To whom he could have given his companion when he was walking in the long road alone.... He wonders frantically, where was he wandering all these years? How could he let himself remain blindfolded by his pride and selfish ego when life played it's snatching game and took away all those years? It pained to realise it now. Where was he during the moments that stole away the childhood from his child? When the wrinkles on his pretty wife's face started to emerge like criss-cross of troubled thoughts... Did he lived a meaningful life? Did he understood the language of tears he saw streaming down mother's face when he set off for his journey...

THE MEMORY MAKER

What should I expect from dis seemingly endless voids and free spaces left behind by YOU? My restless heart inside these walls of hollowness rages in high and low upbeats! I know how it feels like to be the one left behind, waiting. N you the one being awaited takes your own sweet time wandering mindlessly around the world chasing your dreams. And I,sit here, trying to gather the fragments of our togetherness...in a hope to enliven the beauty once again! How wretch I feel the rain pattering outside my windows know, the heartless winds know, the frozen skies know! It seems like ages the last I heard from you, though you told the future days would be bright, inside my heart I fear you must have forgotten me n lost the sweetness of our friendship amidst ur world of turmoils and turbulents. I miss your presence in your absence n I think of you more now;reading, re-reading n by-hearting ur words.. Hope you'll stumble against me again n tell me your stories... as I wait here forever for you as your MEMORY MAKER!

TO FEBRUARY WITH LOVE

As th orange sun begins to set, The young cuckoo nudges towards its mate for warmth, Daffodils sway away in perfect harmony... Like the slipping sand between the fingers, Breezy winds of February passes away... Yet here I am wandering through the woods, Golden streaks of sun streaming through the branches, The green carpet of grass The season of love is drifting away.. How I longed for February to come again...