Thursday, May 25, 2006

Broken, not Shattered


In everyone’s life, there comes a time when we feel that the whole world around us is crashing slowly but steadily and all hope of ever sustaining the precious is dwindling away piece by piece. It seems that there is nothing left to fight for, to live for and everything that seemed so important before suddenly dwarfs before the enormity of the grief of our loss. And suddenly all the sunshine, all the ambitions are clouded by this enormous shade of pain.

At such times, life becomes an antagonizing struggle to wrestle out all the memories, all the great times that keep coming back to haunt us. We keep wondering what hit me or how didn’t I see what was coming and how something that seemed so right suddenly go so wrong. It could be the separation of a loved one, the passing away of a close companion, the heartbreaking end of a dream, anything that we believed in and that was the closest to our heart. And then in our despair we try to hold on to the remains, the ashes, the carcass of the living that was swept away by the winds of destiny, now lost in the sands of time. But little do we realize that this very stubbornness to keep hiding in the shadows of the dead and the gone will one day make us question the stranger in the mirror. This very curtain of sorrow which we choose to hide behind will one day expose to the world an unrecognizable, mutated version of us, stripped of the vibrancy and spirit that made each one of us, a special “me”.

Even if we decide to get out into the open with the courage to fight our inner battles, it is easier said than done. For the fight that goes on within is the toughest to fight and the hardest to win. You are fighting against yourself, with all the weaknesses and all the strengths known. It is an even fight between the warriors that know each other too well.

Such times are the true tests of our faith, our patience, our resilience and our inner strength. The faith that this is just a phase and it will pass by, the patience needed to let the phase pass and not submit to nervous breakdown, the resilience to get back our life again and the inner strength to keep it going in the face of enormous odds. Each one of us needs to know that we can make it through only if we want to.

But it is easier said than done. Picking up the pieces of broken dreams and trying to see life again through the cracks is an effort like none other. But then what is life without sorrows? We need to lose something to appreciate the value of the things that we otherwise take for granted. It is human tendency to ignore what is given and crave for something else. These times of pain are the ones which make us realize the importance of what we have because our grief isolates us and gives us the time and the inclination to reflect on our life and then hold onto the things we have. If we have been mistreated by someone or hurt by someone’s absolute disregard for our emotions, even an expected good turn or a little consideration by a friend or a stranger seems like a ray of sunshine in the darkness. As we build our life on the tomb of our past, we choose every little brick with care to see that it fits in the wall of our future and like parts of a puzzle being put together, makes more sense with each passing moment.

It might also happen that we become over cautious and try to protect ourselves by building an impervious fortress around our heart and mind to eliminate the possibility of any future pain. However it might so happen that in this zeal of over protectiveness we might push away someone genuine or hurt our own self by denying some much desired company or affection. At the end of it we need to decide what we value more and depending on how accurately we learn to judge the people around us our future engagements of the mind and the heart shall be decided.

There is no one way or the “right” way to do a certain thing. For each one of us there is a different way of doing a particular thing right. The same applies when we are trying to move over our bitter, sad experiences. But what is universal and the most important thing of all is to realize that it is us who have to decide whether we resurrect ourselves from the broken pieces of our life or remain shattered forever.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

The Queen of the Night

Next to a shadow lit stone
Stands the Night Queen all alone
Wondering why she feels so
Amongst all but yet so lone

As the moon slowly passes through the clouds
It peeps out for a while
In that one brief moment of eternity
The queen feels alive, feels like she belongs

In that single glimpse, the moon promises a thousand things
The warmth of love, the joy of understanding
Touch of care, the solace of company
Promise of trust, the leap of faith

But it only lasts for that eternal bit
The promises, the expectations,
For like the oasis the moon is gone
Before it could get any closer

The queen is still enthralled by the feeling
The high she has had for just a while
The comfort that she felt, the hope that swept her away
Only to dash her back on the rocks of reality

As she comes out of the reverie, broken and abused
She can look nowhere for help but only within
What went by, was real or illusion?
She can't decide, only sob in pain

Engulfed in her own scent, she sits there
Quiet, broken and weak inside
The lessons seem to come to her from far away
As if a millennium has passed in a moment

As she looks to the sky, her heart yearns to find the moon
Silly as it is to see it appear from nowhere
But the moon is gone, the trace so faint
The clouds have hidden it all

As she prepares to collect the pieces
Ready for another struggle through life
So suddenly so much had passed
And now the moments drag on forever.......


Saturday, May 13, 2006

The only constant that is a variable

In my knowledge (which is by no means in-depth and almost always questionable) there is just one. Which can it be? And how can a thing be one and also the other, when the one and the other are stark opposites?

Well it is there. It is all around you. Some accept it well; others are uncomfortable but have to deal with it sometime. It happens to everyone, to everything. It is ubiquitous, like God.

That one thing is change. The phenomenon of change is constant, yet by definition change means varying. So change is both, constant and variable.

Think you have some inputs in this. Let me know.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Warrior


Amidst the downpour, the earth shivers
Existence is threatened, living becomes a luxury
But when you learn to weather the gale
The storm means nothing….

Caught in the midst of the mist,
One fights to find a strong footing in the invisible ground beneath
But when you have etched your path through the quicksand
The mangroves mean nothing….

Lost in the forest, fumbling in the deep woods
The calls of the night bring the fear of the unseen
But when you can light up the path in a black hole
The darkness of the night means nothing…..

As the fire of passion burns
It consumes the sense of the mind
But when you have won it against the devil
The human temptation means nothing….

In love one suffers
The pain of separation, the agony of rejection
But when you have sacrificed all your heart at its altar
The heartache means nothing….

The greatest enemy lies within
With the strength of a thousand men
But when you learn to tame the beast beneath
The mightiest of the opponents outside mean nothing….

In life there are differences to overcome,
Struggles to cope with, hardships to be borne
But when you are the warrior
The battles mean nothing.