Well, winter’s on and although it’s started to be the sunny golden days of youth in the beauty of Chandigarh, it’s still chilly because of the wind thanks to Global Warming taking a break and giving its shoes to Global cooling. Amidst all this drama of heavens, we’re plopping our pens on the Sessional sheets given to us by the college. Now, last year, remembering the same time, I can firmly recall the amazing speed with which the students exited college after their day’s test was over; some heading to popular eating joints or to the lake to hang out with friends and the zealous types heading home to study for the morrow’s fight. However, this year, this time, something vastly different is happening. Due to the new sessional policy of the college, two tests are being held in the same day. This caused a unique sight. Now the colliders of the college building, once flooded with only pure sun light is littered with students of all batches and braches, sitting it out in the sun and preparing for the next exam. Although an unfamiliar sight, it is absolutely astounding to see fellow engineers basking in the glory of the sun and studying their brains off. Its a lovely moment to see those heads bent down, sitting cross legged or stretching out on the floor and mesmerized by their subject books. It is not just satisfying to see your friends and colleagues like this, it makes you proud of the community in which you are growing as a person and makes you feel happy about your college. Of course, with this, we strictly disregard the concept that they’re probably cribbing that they don’t have the right books or that the syllabus is too vast. Makes you kind of think about Purani Jeans or Tanha Dil. But then there’s Dil Chahta Hai and Lakshya. It’s never about the future or the past. It’s about the present. And our present will determine our lives and our attitudes. Maybe all this cribbing and studying in the sun will help us later in our lives. Maybe this is what it’s all about. It’s never going to be one path or the other. It’s going to be about our attitudes to all paths. And maybe just maybe, these days in the sun are going to be all we’re going to need to learn some very important lessons in life.
Nitin Khanna
Walking into an Oblivion
As I walked into the morning air, full of anticipation of the day ahead, the chill greeted me with full force. The wind was steadily sweeping on my face and I was no better with the new cardigan and muffler which I had bought with assumptions that they would stop the north Indian winds from charging against my weak bodily frame. Nevertheless, I stepped out into the cold, casually glancing at my watch and reminding myself that I was a good two hours ahead of schedule and would easily beat most of the people with whom I would otherwise have jostled to get a good look of the Living Master. I have many times after that reminded me that I was wrong in this assumption. As I walked along the road leaving the hostel, I saw sewadars standing every few feet, carefully guiding people about the correct path to the Satsang Ghar. I walked along the path they specified and soon reached a point where the road bent down into what was probably the river basin but had been transformed by hard work into a sprawling landscape of trees and grass, with a firm road leading down to my destination. As I stood on top of the road, I looked beyond and saw nothing more than a world of white mist. The landscape I knew had been transformed right in front of me into a white heaven and what was even more surprising to me than the beautiful sight which held me in its power was the overbearing fact that out there in the fog were huge patches of people, trudging along the path specified, leading the march to the Satsang Ghar and I was truly very late indeed. As I walked along the path, I could see the flowers sprouting in the plants very near to me, but I could feel the roar of a giant mass of humanity beyond the white veil, hidden from my eyes but not my thoughts. How many people were out there? Since when were they bearing the cold which I had felt the contempt of since the first moment I had gotten up this morning? What was this feeling which my heart felt when I saw this pristine beauty in front of me and heard the roars of countless people somewhere afar, who seemed to be at a place very distant from here and yet I felt connected to them as thought they were singing my hearts joy out. I was lost in my thoughts when a sewadar came by to ask me to move on. I did as was commanded, although that command came more like a request and was accepted more like a law. I moved on, slowly closing in on the ever evading white wall. As I moved on, I discovered more and more people and the more of them that I saw, the more assured I was that there were more somewhere ahead. At long last I reached the base of the road and although I could see just as far from myself here as I could from there, I felt deluged with humility and a calm which seemed to wash off of me, every small bit of bodily pain and doubt I had fielded ever. I felt like this place was there forever hidden inside me but only today, when I had risen and walked the path I had been told to did I discover it. I steadily walked again, for somehow, looking at the people around me and the mist around them, I knew that I was walking into an oblivion, aware of nothing less than supreme purity.
An Idea I liked…
“Be kinder than necessary.
Everyone you meet is fighting some kind
of battle”.
My Mistakes
I am confused,
Is my love forlorn?
Every step I take,
I make a mistake.
Every word I say,
it causes dismay.
Outside it rains,
but inside it only pains.
My tears turn back on me,
Even they believe its not meant to be.
I don’t know how to react,
In what way to act.
I hope its not,
My final fault.
That I may correct,
my mistakes and inject
that love so true,
back in me and you
By my heart I swear,
to let you know, I care…
Broken
Man is a machine
But thats not the whole scene
God made his fault
It hit us like a lightening bolt
They gave us emotions
To put in motion
Our own fall
An unclimbable wall
Now we’re broken
Life’s just a concession
For this pain
Its gonna rain
Blood some day
Until then in every way
We wait unspoken
Broken
A decision making…
Of all the features offered by the roads of Chandigarh for its weary commuters, the most interesting is also the most common means of travel. Apart from the beautiful fleet of low-floor buses plying across the city, offering a ride from any one end to the other in just rupees five, there is a large assemblage of auto rickshaws offering rides to those who either missed the bus or who prefer to travel in comfort.
On a fine day, traveling along the lines through the heart of the main city, I reached a point where I would have to take a vehicle to reach back to hostel. Not willing to wait for a bus, I asked an auto rickshaw driver squatting by the side of the bus stop how much would he charge to get to Sector 26. Now, the auto rickshaws work with the basis of picking up passengers along the way, so that it would cost less for each single passenger and simply put, this is enough attraction for people to not travel via the bus service. The charges try their best to level with the nominal cost of five rupees charged by the CTU but for longer distances they have to bend around their rules and charge a varying fee between ten to fifty rupees. This gentleman here, if he may allow me to call him that, asked for ten rupees to get to my destination. I tried to immediately disagree, hoping to get a better discount. But it was of no avail and I decided to wait a bit. Within seconds another three wheeler was passing by. I stopped that one and asked the same question. To my disappointment, he too asked for the same amount of ten rupees. Hoping that I would hop on, he put his vehicle on neutral and waited on me. But I had started to walk back towards the first one. I decided that since I had asked the first one first, he had more right to the ten rupees I was about to spend on my travel than the second one. So I decided on the amount with him and climbed on. Now, however, a thought flashed across my mind, and hence we come to the central part of our discussion.
Since I had asked the rickshaw already sitting there first, was he more entitled to the ten rupees than anyone else, specially considering he fact that since he was waiting on the bus stand, he should be entitled to most of the passengers coming there and wishing to board an auto rickshaw. Or was the second auto the rightful owner to my ten rupees? Thinking about the effort he went into, stopping for me and staying there only to watch me get on someone else’s auto, I feel that he was more at loss by my decision.
The central argument by an economics professor would be to say that an expression of interest or a calling of rate list does not bind any firm into any sort of agreement considering the fact that such a procedure is applied to all eligible businesses in the market. But in the real life, even microeconomics changes form dynamically along with the environment and the fact that I asked about the charges of travel would make some people feel that it bound me to a stronger bind to choose this first auto than any of its competition. The inventive would even go on to say that I owe it to both the auto rickshaw drivers as I ha involved them both by my actions. But that would be offensively against my own interests which rest with arriving back to hostel at the least possible cost.
I can but think more into the argument, but a logical answer seems not to be in the offing, thus I ask the people if they have any answers. Do contact me personally or at my email with your suggestions and answers. Until then, I continue to travel with a clear conscious hoping plainly that one day I have my own vehicle so that I may not be faced with questions of such questioning potency
Angst
Anger,
Its always there. Waiting to pop out of the corner, waiting impatiently to attack your brain, to consume each and every part of your creative conscious. Anger is there, like a shadow. But unlike a shadow, it cannot be stood upon. It looms on us, looking out for reasons. Often it just comes, and then you just cannot concentrate. Or enjoy for that matter. Even in the most solemn or beautiful settings it ruins everything.
Anger,
It has a way of eating out all your thoughts and even your appetite. It’ll kill for attention.
Anger,
Its got its ways.
But Anger,
sometimes its good. They say everything is good in small quantities.
But Anger,
Its always got to be big. It doesn’t spare. It attacks and hunts down the last bit of happiness, just to replace it with a sick kind of remorse, which doesn’t want to go away. Sadness can go away by music. But anger. No.
Sometimes i think Anger must be good.Because no matter what you do, it’ll be back. So why run away from the inevitable. After all, Hell ain’t all That Bad.
N