There are days, which unknowingly set our mood in reverse mode, picturing everything as nonsense and meaningless. Unfortunately it was one of those horrible days with a late wake up alarm, unsuccessful hunt for matching dupatta that ended up in change of outfit in last minute, rushing back all the steps back to my room on 2nd floor to get the office ID and a scolding face from Cab driver for making him wait for 10 minutes!!
At office I found my system unusually slow, temperature abnormally freezing and sleep dragging me to bizarre dreams.
A scream made me jump from my sleep. I found everyone anxiously looking around. Security alarm broke the silence with its high pitched squeal .I smelt something very odd and in spilt of a second all our eyes stared to a single point. Smoke pumped in, through our door splits. First it formed a thin line showing its path, changing fast to a cluster of clouds and then spreading the semi black smoke around. Panic struck the floor. I could hear only worried shouts as we rushed to emergency exit. My wits raced for a reason.
I heard my friends calling me and pushing me towards the crowd making me realize that I was moving slow creating another crowd behind me.
Something is wrong. I couldn’t see more than the shoulder of the person who stands before me but I felt the arising tension .The emergency exit is not opening. It some how got jammed!!
Before I could think of anything I heard another scream. Big flames of fire were getting everything, our systems, chairs , papers...We all started running to the other phase .I was too occupied to get scared but my mind kept on racing .My family ,my friends, my dreams. I didn’t have any logic on what I thought. Someone was holding my hand and urging me to move fast- a girl which I didn’t like at all .Why she has taken that effort to take care of me ?She might be hoping for my support too. But I was too horror stuck even to move my little finger. Again the crowd stopped moving causing another confusion .I heard some one whisper in total fear “Its fire every where…”.My heart was beating fast. Is everything ending here? Is that life all about? So many pictures flashed in my thought, my home, my family... How they going to hear this news? My eyes filled...Will I see them again... Oh! I want everything back. I thought of 1000 promises to please the god. .But no answers I got. Loud blast of systems and electronic gadgets cracking in fire petrified me .Some shouted to break the glass window but no one could reach near it… I was too scared to cry or to speak…I thought of the fire, burns and pain. ..This cannot be real. I cannot be in this situation...I should have taken leave today…I shouldn’t have come to job at all... Why no one coming to rescue us…I felt myself choked by the harsh smell of smoke, my eyes burned …I turned around and something hard hit my hand….
I was startled to hear the laugh. Two of my colleagues were standing near me and were laughing. Just one moment ago one of them were holding a stick and trying to break the glass pane. How can he laugh now? Is everything fine now? Confused on “how”, I managed to utter “Thanks...” and smiled gratefully, they saved my life…..
It took few seconds for me to realize that I was dreaming, that too at office, dozing of by my desk!!!!!!! My friends were having a laugh of life explaining to all, how funny it was to see me waking up startled with a strange expression and then suddenly smiling delightfully saying thanks!!!!!!!!!
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Monday, February 15, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
life
The big old house exhaled ageing in every inch. Unkempt courtyard with a creaking gate gave me the first impression of confusion, “Do anyone stays here”? As being there, often, my mom confidently walked ahead with me tailing her quite uncertainly. It was more than 10 years since I have gone there and the picture in my memory was totally different from what I was seeing. There was an adjacent building with lot of big white pillars all around instead of walls, with polished stones coloring the floor in black, white and red, where we as children used to dance and play. At the corner there was a big statue of Krishna which made me confuse it even as a temple.
Now I found the whole structure converted as another house with a different entrance.
There were walls between the two houses; i could feel myself getting a sort of gloominess...like entering into another world...
Nothing happened when we rang the door bell except the noise of chirping birds which I hardly find musical at that moment. To my annoyance mom again rang the bell and before I could scold her I heard a feeble voice. “Who’s is there?”...The same question got repeated in different voice modulation all indicating a week body as its source…I couldn’t hear what my mom talked over that wooden window, I could hear only muffles.
“Open the front door, it is open”-I was again surprised as I obeyed my mom’s word and pushed the front door open. This was the room that made me teach the meaning of the word elegant .It is still afresh in me the moment I asked my dad why he said this room is so elegant. And from then it is always this room that comes to my mind whenever I think or compare elegance.
But now to my utter disbelief the big spacious room was made small by walls, once shining floor has been cracked, cobweb adorning the ceilings and a big table occupying most of the room with bundled up books and newspapers all over it. The only things I found familiar were the old clock that still strike the time correctly even though the faded glass make it difficult to read and the ‘tamburu’ which was kept at the corner ,sheltered partially with a dirty cloth, showing its broken strings covered in cobweb.
The startling cough drew me to a nearby room; he was there, without tooth he resembled an innocent child. His eyes twinkled with his old smile but I felt a pain .He was urging all of us to sit and was talking this n that. When silence crept in I jumped in with some silly questions …But there was moments when there was nothing to converse. Silences... Silences making us feel a drift, meaningless in talks which we carry on and I couldn’t make out the feeling I saw in that old man’s eyes – shyness of being weak, agony of being helpless and something more which I label as acceptance.
Sometimes we long for intrusions, at that moment when topics dried up there was a loud noise near the big pool. Door swing open and an old lady came in; one of his relatives who stayed there to look after him…She was fine-looking though age and life made lot of dark shades all over her face. .I found the same note of resignation and lost sparkles in her smile n words…But I was surprised to see how much care she put to make us comfortable...I can without doubt call her loving.....
I sat there sipping my tea, simply listening to my mom... she was talking and making everyone smile, telling many old stories when they all were young, how lively they were n d place …enjoying their holidays like festivals...Slowly all started to talk and smile happily again recollecting all those wonderful days, explaining to me each n everything.. Showing me the old photographs and big paintings that filled the walls...at that moment I envied my mom so much….She brought a warm happy feeling back to that small crowd...She used to go there only for vacations when she was small, still she is so close to everyone…Knowing all the people around , stories around .. Sometimes I feel she talks too much but she talks so naïve and straight that I couldn’t feel like stopping her...
When I walked back to the gate, I asked my mom what happened to them. And I got lot many strings of answers... government regulations that tied most of their land, confused siblings who struggle between traditional convictions and new world, heavy bundles of customs and culture that made them too weak to move forward, inability to break the walls made by caste n way of life, lack of exposure cocooning them to their own world..And finally she told me with a sigh, “They forgot to change with the world and finally got lost”…
Strangely I thought of that old clock which welcomed us with a foggy shadowed glass...Time is moving but no one can easily make out time correctly with that faded glass….
As we drove back home, I felt like I missed lot of things…not me alone but we, the present and future generation…
Just like my world sometimes seems both strange and amusing to my mother I too find her young life lot of different from what I had and having…I doubt if I could ever bring anyone to any place like my mom have lead me there.… A place with lot of greeneries, river, temples, ponds, birds and familiar people all round....with lot of stories and so much loving and sincere blessings…
But the journey kept on reminding me the words on my office desktop calendar which I never noticed before
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” –Charles Darwin
Ye, though very sad to admit that is life all about…
Now I found the whole structure converted as another house with a different entrance.
There were walls between the two houses; i could feel myself getting a sort of gloominess...like entering into another world...
Nothing happened when we rang the door bell except the noise of chirping birds which I hardly find musical at that moment. To my annoyance mom again rang the bell and before I could scold her I heard a feeble voice. “Who’s is there?”...The same question got repeated in different voice modulation all indicating a week body as its source…I couldn’t hear what my mom talked over that wooden window, I could hear only muffles.
“Open the front door, it is open”-I was again surprised as I obeyed my mom’s word and pushed the front door open. This was the room that made me teach the meaning of the word elegant .It is still afresh in me the moment I asked my dad why he said this room is so elegant. And from then it is always this room that comes to my mind whenever I think or compare elegance.
But now to my utter disbelief the big spacious room was made small by walls, once shining floor has been cracked, cobweb adorning the ceilings and a big table occupying most of the room with bundled up books and newspapers all over it. The only things I found familiar were the old clock that still strike the time correctly even though the faded glass make it difficult to read and the ‘tamburu’ which was kept at the corner ,sheltered partially with a dirty cloth, showing its broken strings covered in cobweb.
The startling cough drew me to a nearby room; he was there, without tooth he resembled an innocent child. His eyes twinkled with his old smile but I felt a pain .He was urging all of us to sit and was talking this n that. When silence crept in I jumped in with some silly questions …But there was moments when there was nothing to converse. Silences... Silences making us feel a drift, meaningless in talks which we carry on and I couldn’t make out the feeling I saw in that old man’s eyes – shyness of being weak, agony of being helpless and something more which I label as acceptance.
Sometimes we long for intrusions, at that moment when topics dried up there was a loud noise near the big pool. Door swing open and an old lady came in; one of his relatives who stayed there to look after him…She was fine-looking though age and life made lot of dark shades all over her face. .I found the same note of resignation and lost sparkles in her smile n words…But I was surprised to see how much care she put to make us comfortable...I can without doubt call her loving.....
I sat there sipping my tea, simply listening to my mom... she was talking and making everyone smile, telling many old stories when they all were young, how lively they were n d place …enjoying their holidays like festivals...Slowly all started to talk and smile happily again recollecting all those wonderful days, explaining to me each n everything.. Showing me the old photographs and big paintings that filled the walls...at that moment I envied my mom so much….She brought a warm happy feeling back to that small crowd...She used to go there only for vacations when she was small, still she is so close to everyone…Knowing all the people around , stories around .. Sometimes I feel she talks too much but she talks so naïve and straight that I couldn’t feel like stopping her...
When I walked back to the gate, I asked my mom what happened to them. And I got lot many strings of answers... government regulations that tied most of their land, confused siblings who struggle between traditional convictions and new world, heavy bundles of customs and culture that made them too weak to move forward, inability to break the walls made by caste n way of life, lack of exposure cocooning them to their own world..And finally she told me with a sigh, “They forgot to change with the world and finally got lost”…
Strangely I thought of that old clock which welcomed us with a foggy shadowed glass...Time is moving but no one can easily make out time correctly with that faded glass….
As we drove back home, I felt like I missed lot of things…not me alone but we, the present and future generation…
Just like my world sometimes seems both strange and amusing to my mother I too find her young life lot of different from what I had and having…I doubt if I could ever bring anyone to any place like my mom have lead me there.… A place with lot of greeneries, river, temples, ponds, birds and familiar people all round....with lot of stories and so much loving and sincere blessings…
But the journey kept on reminding me the words on my office desktop calendar which I never noticed before
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” –Charles Darwin
Ye, though very sad to admit that is life all about…
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