Miracle

Do you believe in miracles?

I know thats a very strange question, firstly because "miracles" so to say has no defined realm. Something that seems miracle to you may seem quite an ordinary thing for somebody else. But I was still wondering how many people actually believe in miracles. I could have have asked "Do you believe in God?" as well but then that is one question to which people almost answer mechanically. I call myself Agnostic. But sometimes I wonder if I took that stance just to evade that question. Anyways I was talking about miracles. So before you think about my earlier question, you have to be clear what the word means to you.

When I was child, I always looked at dewdrops with awe and thought them to be jewels provided by nature that adorn the neck of mother earth. After sometime I realised it is just water. But then isnt Diamond that transfers its sparkle to the beholder just carbon (or should I say 'coal' to put it more crudely). So whats wrong if my precious little dewdrop transfers its sparkle to my eyes and I see it not as "just water" !

See, that morning dewdrop is a 'miracle' for me. I can cite a hundred other examples that seem a miracle from my eyes. What then is your 'miracle'?

[This post is inspired by Anks'poem (specially the last stanza) and Paulo Coelho but these are my thoughts that I have tried to put up.]

Slipped away moments.

As I watch people moving around me so fast, I wonder am I standing still. (Ah that reminds me of "relative velocity") . Did time move away from me or did I run away? Probably we both diverged from each other and are still doing. (the universe is expanding). In the course of such a journey so many things have slipped away from my hand and I barely noticed. Coming home is a reminder of those slipped away things.

Each time I come home, my father tells me to look into my room and discard away the things that I dont need. I sit back and open the briefcases and cartons one by one and look at those memoirs of my school days. Each of them telling me a story. Cards, gifts, letters, photographs, slambooks, sometimes even a dried up leaf or flower carefully kept between the pages of my diary.

A few more steps back and I find my old dolls, torn and neglected. Once they used to be my constant companions. And as I go through the albums, it doesnt take much to relive those moments of birthday parties, the hue and cry I used to make to go there, the games, the delicious dishes, the surprises and the lost friends. I still remember some of the birthdays though I dont have any idea where to wish them... nov 22nd, dec 15th, march 6th... so many more. Have you ever tried holding grains of sand or even water in your clenched fist? It feels the same way.

But it doesnt end there. I am talking about things that left me long back and are too far way now. How about the things that slipped away recently. Here in my room, I find my unread books, unfinished poems and a story that I left half written, letters that I never posted, cards that I never sent, gifts that I never packed, paintings that I never completed, a diary entry which ended just with the date (I wonder what was it that I wanted to write).

I pack them back just as they were, not a single thing discarded, quietly saying "next time, dad, next time" and wondering will the next time ever come.

Seven Things

Anks tagged me ... so here I am racking my brains!!! It wasn't as easy as I thought.

Seven Things you want to do before you die:

Visit Austrailia.
A cruise trip (well i am scared of sea voyage although :D)
Yell my lungs out at some Echo point.
Learn skiing.
Publish my poems (someday... sometime)
Plan and design my own house!!!
Read every book written! (I agree with Anks)
Understand people (in general. specially my friends) - This is tougher!!!

Seven Things you can do:

Waste time for hours together without even realising i am doing it
Convince people (most, not all)
Sing (specially when i am alone)
Listen to PJs the whole day! (Thanks to the people around me)
Talk, talk and talk (Some friends will vouch for this and...)
Be silent for hours and hours (Some friends will vouch for this too :D)
Read books any number of them as long as the whole day and whole night.

Seven Things you say most:

As if I care!
Oh pleeeeeeeasssse!!!
Sun to...
Achha ek baat batao...
Absolutely.
Pagal ho kya?
Wohi to!!!

Seven Things you can't do:

Stay awake the night before exam and study.
Paint (I wish I could :( )
Convince about something that i am not convinced about.
Dance. (Keep me away from that)
Watch more than 3 movies in a day (plssss gimme a break!!!)
Drive a car alone (I am learning)
Flatter people just to find my way out.

Seven Things that attract you to the opposite sex:

Sense of humour (humour not sarcasm)
Intelligence .
A sense of responsibility.
Patience
Respect for certain things.
Personality (includes dressing sense).
Ability to handle unexpected situations.

Seven Celebrity crushes:

Aamir Khan (used to be)
Priyanshu Chatterjee (used to be)
Sonu Nigam (used to be)
Saurav Ganguly (used to be)
Aditya (Son of Madhav Rao Scindia)
Jimmy Shergill (used to be)
SRK

Thats it!!!

[ps: my fancies, wishes and whims are subject to change very frequently. so whatever is written above although were very much true while i was writing them, they may not be so while u r reading :) . this does not apply to the information written below. i mean if u r tagged, u r.!!!]

Seven People you want to tag:

Kaps
Shubhra
Khushi
Priya
Ritu
Ruchika
Vagabond

Its a mad mad world !!!

Why would I in a time when everything is absolutely "normal" say somthing like that.

Well because firstly its not about now or then, but the times when I tire out my grey cells (whatever there r) in some (u may say worthless) brooding and 2ndly because thats how it is. So here I was reading a book and the introduction says that the moral of the story is we become what we pretend to be, so be careful what you pretend to be. (Is it so??? Some people say we are what we are.) I havent finished the book yet, so I dont know how the story ends up to prove that. And I will keep my views about the moral to myself till I finish the book. But in any case its better to take the writer's caution. (This book, btw for those who r wondering, is abt a person who lives and wrks for the Nazis and secretly as a spy for the Allieds. His secret unknown to his parents even his wife, whats more he gets caught, no not by the Nazis but by the Allieds and then is sent to a prison in Israel. Great isnt it?)

So back to the mad world. To the people who live amidst controversies and are themselves unaware of it and probably those who do that knowingly (like the character of the book). Unfortunately the book is not the only place where we find it. Now dont expect me to speak smthing on Politics. I know tht must be the first thing tht came to your mind. But I found them in lot of other places like the journalist who had a phobia for writing and the word for "fear of long words". (I wonder what those ppl will do if they come to know wat they r suffering from.) And ther r others like the communal riots, the bomb blasts just before Diwali, the river (if u r wondering how the river can be such a place, then try visiting one crowded ghat of some river. )
River is not just the only such aspect of nature. (I know, now u will say, "Oh no!!! not again) In any case wat I mean is anything that is blessing can be a curse. As human we are quite well aware of it from our first invention, fire to the atom bombs, plastics and wat not. Anything that is true can so well be a lie. And well I cannot leave out the people I come across in everyday life., in the newspaper, TV, and smtimes in real. This world is a stage so well said and we are all struggling to do our best in the roles that r given to us. (or may be pretending to be someone we r not)

Someone once said that my nature consists of every opposite characteristic. I agreed to some extent but I still wondered if it was true. And if so then what are the characteristics which were being pointed out. I dont remember if we ever talked about it or not. But then how does it matter. It afterall is a mad mad world and I am a part of. Sooner I accept, the better.

Now back to my book. Well may be I will write something abt it after I finish.

Random thoughts

[these are absolutely random thoughts. i regret the incoherent and confusing write-up.]

The more I try to look at the simplicities of life (i.e if there r !!! ), the more they get complex (as if they were not !!!) and I give up (did I have to even try??!! )

Then again there are times when I find in those complexities some simple thoughts and simple pleasures. I am being paradoxical, you would say. I will agree. But I cannot help it.

Human mind is probably the most complex of all creations. It has the ability to create things more complex than itself (if u remember ur school/college days, you cannot help but agree). The thought that this whole universe(including the human mind) is created with just five elements (if you believe it. i am not sure) sends me into fits of wonder. Impossible I say. Not just because of the complexities but the opposing natures of various creations and the wide disparities. But who knows. On smaller range the same thing happens in Chemistry. So I continue to ponder (do u think my mind is wrking overtime??).

I then extend this to thoughts. We cannot look into somebody else's mind and see what's cooking. Forget abt others, psychologist say there are aspects in our own mind which we have not explored. But once in a while when a glimpse some intangible thoughts comes close to my perception, it gives me a shock. Some of them are so close to my own mind that I wonder if i was looking into a mirror and some so far away that their origin remains a mystery i dont want to know.

But more than that wat I find difficult to comprehend is that ppl whom i suspected to know are so different from wat i thought them to be and whom i never got to know r so much like me. And do these realisations affect? 'No' i will say. Am I pretending to be someone else? May be not exactly but some beliefs have taken roots and i am unable to shake them of just like that... may be i dont even want to. Is that called pretention?

These seldom matter. A speed-breaker in the journey of life may be but life goes on soon with the same pace as ever. And I am back to the quest of simplicity in complexity to find just the opposite. (oops!!! did I mess up somewhere??!! )

Of Books and Authors II

(For all the readers of this blog, I have included the links to my poems in the side-bar. If you go through them, don't forget to drop in your comment)

I never finished the more-than-1100-pages book in fear that once I finished, I would never care to look at Holmes again. Today I took out the book and smiled at myself.

Soon after this during the same years I was introduced to Ruskin Bond. It was his simplicity of words that stole my attention, the depth of his thoughts. And his stories were in first person and while reading them I felt as if I was his confidant. There was something personal in the way his stories were told, quite different from Dr Watson who (almost) merely placed the facts before the readers. There were more reasons - his closeness to nature and that he could touch all the stages of life - childhood, youth and old age in the same way. Then there was the twists he always managed to bring about in some of his short stories like "The eyes have it".

Coming to short stories of course how can I forget some of my all time favorites "The last leaf" by O.Henry, "The Open Window" by Saki, ... I am forgetting some of them, there are so many which I can always read and enjoy even for the umpteenth time. The best however remains "The face on the wall"by E.V.Lucas.

In my standard 9th and 10th I had to stop my frequent trysts with story books. Then in my 11th it started again. But this time the books were quite different. Most of the time I finished them just because I had started them. I didn't give them much of my time either. After 12th, I started classics. "Jane Eyre" was good. "Pride and Prejudice" was fine. But after reading "Sense and Sensibility", I lost interest. The next book I undertook was "Fountainhead". The philosophy went way over my head but I liked it because of the strength of the characters.

Many books came on my way after that - books by Jeffery Archer, "Harry Potter", "Class", "Animal Farm", "Diary of a young girl", and there were more (my memory fails me). I liked them for different reasons.

In the recent days I read Da Vinci Code, The Alchemist. I also read some Indian authors whom I liked because of the richness of language, the poetic approach and because it was not one of those cut-sliced-and-served-on-a-plate sort of book, it was as-you-want-to-take-it kind of book. This includes one more book "The pale view of hills" (my regrets, I forgot the name of the Japanese author).

But you see all these still do not answer the question "Who is my favourite author". All are so much different from each other and I like them for different reasons. Is it not possible that the question remains unanswered.

Of Books and Authors - I

I always believed reading is my hobby. Of course I will agree that from the vast sea of books that exist, what I have tasted probably does not constitute even one drop. But does that matter? I wonder. Then the usual question comes up, "Who is my favourite author". For various reasons I always stumble upon this question. Although I do manage to answer, but the question continues linger in my sub-conscious.

My earliest memories are of the "Champaks" and "Tinkles" that used to occupy most of my reading. Then came "Tintin", "Asterisks" and all. With the introduction to my mother tongue I came in touch with bengali works including compositions of my father. All these were very prized possessions of mine. And I still remember the feel of the warm fresh tears that streamed down my eyes when I was returned one of my prized possessions in tattered conditions. It was as if someone very close to me was returned to me in near-death condition after being brutally tortured. That was when I was in class 1st.

My change of school in 4th standard brought me to the magical world of library. And with that I was introduced to Enid Blyton and the like. I actually do not remember the various authors whose work I read then because at that time, the characters were more important. Some of the characters were Mr Pickwick, Amelia Jane, and how can I forget Alice and Peter Pan. Then came the adventures. My first step was Famous Five, then I ascended to Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. But none of these made much of an impact.

It was then that I came across Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. All previous books gave a feeling of imagination but this one was different. I used to get so engrossed while reading it that I thought I was a part of the team too. I started admiring Holmes. His deductions, calculated moves, acumen, penetrating mind, flawless logic, the calmness with which he dealt with the situations - all used to take away my breath. Each time I found him in some danger, my heart used to skip a beat. Everywhere I went, be it school or travel the almost 5 cm thick book was to be with me. For me he was a like a living legend and I denied to believe that he was a work of fiction. I still remember after I read a story in which he couldn't catch the culprit (the culprit was a lady) I remained heartbroken for quite sometime. That was in standard 7th - 8th.

I am sorry the constraint of time does not permit me to continue. So I will take a break today but I will return soon with the rest of the journey.