You Make Me Love My Life

There is a picture of yours in a silk saree. Hairs straightened; face partly covered with your hands, hiding a laugh. 

Whenever I feel that my life is fast turning rudderless, whenever I start losing my connect with what is beautiful about life, I see that smile on your face, I do a zoom and look into your twinkling eyes, I catch the glean of flash bulbs on your silken hair, and I am back to loving life again.

Frozen in time is your smile, you are the reason I tread another mile.

Rajesh

Centre of the Universe

I was in Belgaum a couple of months ago, waiting to catch the train home.  As usual we had swarm of beggars all around us, coming in some strange randomness. The young and abled would come first, this will be closely followed by the variety that limps followed by very old women. The increasing degrees of pathos that the line up generates taxes human emotions.

To a very large degree, I am immune to beggars who are able bodied. I am partly immune to the limping variety. I generally succumb to the old and the aged. I fail to comprehend why someone as old as my grandmother, barely able to move, hardly see, has to go out every day into the world and beg for food. I feel cheated being a part of a nation that is all fart and no action, especially when it comes to the aged. The grains that we allow to rot every year is sufficient for two times of food for all the poor and needy elders in this country. I wish I was working with the government, I would have at least given it a try!

The elderly also remind me of the intrinsic imperfection that exists in this world. Truly, God is surely not a communist, how else shall we explain the lives of 75 year olds spent on Indian roadside, without shelter, without clothes, without food... without medical care, without human company? When I look at these beggar women, I wonder if they ever begot children, sons and daughters who abandoned them. Many of these women are schizophrenic, and have clearly been thrown out of their homes.

Amidst all these thoughts, I was suddenly accosted by two kids, one around 8 years old and the other around 15 months old. I and Rajkaran (a colleague) took a break from our waiting for the train and spent some time with the duo. For those couple of minutes when our world came together, the child was the centre of our little universe. The baby took immediate liking for me, maybe because she found that she had a little more hair than I had on my head :)

I know what future awaits these young Indians, I do not want to think about it, I do not want to write about it. May God bless them with food in their tummies.

Rajesh

Life Thunders On

I sometimes wonder about the tenacity with which life finds reasons to hang on. My maternal grandmother is 87 and in the terminal stages of cancer, she can barely breathe, but life holds on.

My life have been in absolute chaos for sometime now, there are very limited things and people in life that bring me joy, life however finds constant source of engagement, a blog that makes me laugh a movie that makes me cry some good lookin woman who makes me drool, a child that makes me want to have one of my own.

My life thunders on.

Rajesh

Lets learn to love, all over again!

I never knew when it all became so complicated. When I started rewriting definitions, drafting terms of engagement. I do not remember when I stopped having time for those who love me and started finding time chasing those who dont. I dont remember when I grew up, when I became just another face in the dumb fucking crowd, when I stopped tipping the poor beggar woman on the corner or the young kid of the tea stall owner. I have no clue when I forgot . . . Remembering you.

Rajesh

Do You Remember

The nights give way to stupid days. Life to more life, white noise.

Working on the keyboard answering stupid mails, scripting project plans, wasting time, I find myself suddenly thinking about you. I suddenly rediscover things that make my moments special. I feel my love for life increasing.

The moments I spend thinking of you are the moments I love to live in. These are the moments when birds and rainbows sunlight and clouds kites and balloons mom and dad all feel so wonderful and special. These are the moments when I hear your laughter echo through the corridors of my otherwise desolate life. These are the moments when I surrender, when I dont fight the urge to dispute how incorrigibly I love you.

Wishful thoughts cross my mind... I Wish you had loved me, a quarter as much as I love you. And if you do, wish I knew.

Rajesh