It comes closer..

It comes closer..

Its jaws are wide open, its fangs are ready to plunge,
It waits in the dark, an eerie sound it emits,
A grunt escapes it as it is displeased by the wait
The man is delaying its chances to pounce.

The man becomes careless, he takes one false step,
In a moment the man has made a mistake,
It pounces and grabs him by his shoulder,
Dragging him as the man screams.
But there is no one to hear him scream, no one to hear him disappear.

The man grows tired, his blood flows like the Ganges after a storm,
Gushing forth and rejecting its own master.
He starts to lose his conscious, the images go blurry,
It has made a mark.

The man starts to fight, he grabs a stone and hits it,
he hits it in his temple.
It growls and it bites deeper,
but the man will not give in,

He fights it, it weakens him further,
it strikes again with its jaws.
The scene goes bloody.

No one knows who lived that night,
the darkness had absorbed it all within...

As the pigeon flies...

As i sit and reflect on my life, a pigeon sits on the threshold of my balcony.

Life is a funny game. I say funny, not daring, not difficult but funny. And at times, a little sadistic too.

A year back I could never have known the point in life where I am standing now. A year back, I was at an engineering college, with two surprisingly much crazier roommates than me, and never thought of life so intensely. My life at that point rotated about home, hostel, UPES, friends and room 306 D –block. But then life changed, situations arose and here I am at Bangalore, in a college much far away, pursuing a degree much more different than solving laplace transformation and quantum mechanics.

All the philosophers say that life is unpredictable and live it as it comes. They say that to let go and move on is a part of life. Well, that’s easier said than done. I always thought of myself as very practical and organized. So much so, that I despised people who cried and hugged their friends in the last day of school. I used to think that such things are a part of life. People come and go, not a big deal. But then I was a kid back then.

I was a loner back in school. I had a lot of friends in school, but I was lonely inside. I did not have a friend with whom I could be open and frank. But then in college, I met such friends. Friends, who were much different than what I had hoped for. No two friends of mine were similar. But they were friends for life. These friends brought out the best and worst in me. They made me a better human being, they made me mature. These were people who I could swear by for life and never regret any moment of it.

It’s true that moving on and meeting new people is the practical thing to do. But for once in my life, I want to go back to those familiar faces. I want to go back and share a few more moments with those past faces. For the first time, I let my emotions take control. Over the past few months I have met a lot of people, made a lot of new friends. But nowhere did I find such friends that I hoped for. For that I blame myself because every time I tried to make a good friend I would compare and find out some inadvertent flaw that I could not overlook.

And now, I think back each day, to those times well spent. To those moments of absolute joy and cherish those memories because they are not coming back.

And as I sit and stop contemplating my past and decide to finally let go, the pigeon perched on my balcony flies away.

Wanted

Give me your hand to hold,

It’s all I ever wanted,

To be yearned and to behold,

To live my life as I wanted,

It’s hard to be alone tonight,

And all I can do is cry,

To keep my senses at might,

And all I can do is cry,

I will be with you forever, if you are with me,

I will take you by your hand and feel the heat,

I will be the one you dreamed of forever,

Baby, I will be the one you always wanted….

You made me see what I am today,

It’s kind of tough not to feel you here,

I know where you are today,

I just want to be with you there,

Make me a creature of thy living,

Stop for a second to think about me,

And it’s no use as it’s not the time for grieving,

Because this is what you wanted me to be,

I will be with you forever, if you are with me,

I will take you by your hand and feel the heat,

I will be the one you dreamed of forever,

Baby, I will be the one you always wanted….

Dump the cool

Drugs, written with five small letters but with life altering consequences. Clinically speaking, a drug is "a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being".  A tad too high flying isn’t it. So basically it is a substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function.

College life is a time when a student breaks out of his/her comfort zone and steps into a new phase of life. It is a time when everything seems worth giving a try. A time when they get the sweet taste of liberty. A perfect time for drugs to enter the scenario.

You see, drugs are like medusa, seductive yet inimical, beautiful yet ugly. They promise to take you to a world of your own but fail to mention that it slowly takes you away from the real world. Just like a tiger who silently stalks his pray, waiting and then swoosh, falls on his prey and feeds on him, similarly drugs swoop into a person’s life and destroys it in a very short span of time.

Some common drugs that students consume are caffeine (available in coffee) and nicotine( composition of cigarettes). Some higher forms of drugs are marijuana, opium, cocaine, sleeping pills and anti depressant pills and so on and so forth. Some even higher forms are LSD, weed etc.

The susceptibility of a college student to enter into an addiction for drugs is accelerated by peers and colleagues. On encouragement by such people student have a tendency to pick up these habits. Some people pick these habits up just for the ‘cool’ tag and these kinds of thought are mostly generated by seeing other people in and around do the same. Lastly, we come to the frustrated one’s, the ones who are so frustrated with life as a whole that the idea of something that can make them forget all these problems make them the greatest targets for drug consumption.

Drugs are harmful that everybody is aware of, how harmful that everyone needs to be made aware of. An average of two out of three college student smoke of which from every four smokers, one dies annually. Coffee doesn’t have very fatal consequences but an excess of coffee causes a reduction in height growth, insomnia, depression, sinus problems and headaches. Some remote cases of sleep with disturbing dreams have also been reported. Smoking a single joint of marijuana is equivalent to smoking 8 cigarettes together. Substances like cocaine, sleeping pills, anti depressant pills causes’ loss of weight, skin problems, insomnia, headache and sloppiness. LSD causes all of the above mentioned problems and along with that causes hallucinations that have fatal results in some cases. Other than that drugs cause cancer, respiratory problem like asthma, bronchitis etc. There are also psychological problems associated with it like sudden outburst of anger, temperament problems, loss of sensibility from sense organs and other problems.

 So, to not be a part of it is the best solution to stay away from drugs. Don’t give in to it rather fight it. It will be difficult to keep your hands away from it but believe me, it will be the best decision of your life. So, stay drug-free, stay safe, because life’s just one so live it wisely.

Red

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when we hear the word red?

Hmm… let’s see..

Red is the colour of passion. Red is the colour of sacrifice. Red is the colour of the youth today. Red is the sign of war. 

Red encompasses so much more than it sounds. Scientifically speaking, red is the colour with the greatest wavelength. Red is the colour that flowed when General Dyer shot down innocent people in jalianwala bagh on the morning of Sunday 13 april, 1919. Red is the colour of passion that flowed in the veins of Heer- Ranjha for each other. Red is the colour of the communists that shook the very foundation of modern socio-economic society. Red is also the bitter colour of violence and war. Wars, that since time immemorial has proved as a means to kill hundreds and thousands of innocent people and destroyed families.

Red has also done great deeds. A red cross is the emblem of the Red Cross society, one of the largest humanitarian societies in the world committed to service to mankind and its needs. Red was what the great Subhash Chandra Bose demanded in exchange for freedom. Red is the colour of Coca Cola, the world’s most valuable brand and the largest producers of carbonated soft drinks. A red ribbon is the symbol in our fight against AIDS. The red colour is also the mark of one of the largest fast food restaurants in the world, Mc. Donalds.

Red is also the colour of sin, the mark of guilt, the signature of lust, an illusion to danger. It is the symbol of courage and free will. It is the colour of anger in the youth today for everything that is wrong with the world. Be it terrorism, inflations, recessions, politics and modern policies that have shaped the world today, red is the colour that has been our symbol of the struggle to make this world a bit better to live, each and every day.

Red is the first colour of the rainbow, a symbol of beauty and oneness, a symbol of nature’s utmost beautiful existence. Red is the colour of the morning sun. Red is the colour of the rose, a symbol of love and commitment. Red is the colour that flows through our veins, day and night. Red veils the morning sky. Red drapes the mother goddess, shakti. Red is in the sky, red is in the water. Red is in you, me, everyone.

In a nutshell, red is the colour that is around us everywhere. Red symbolizes so many things around us. Red encompasses us in every sphere of life. Red is the colour by which we live today and in the golden and red flames of fire will we one day, again become a part of Earth. 

When the clock strikes thirteen

Sounds bizarre doesn’t it. I mean, we are so used to the 12 hour clock basis that it would strike us odd. But what if it did. What if for just one day, in our mundane humdrum life, we got an extra hour, how relevant would it be? Would it be an hour of extra sleep, an extra hour of hanging out at your favourite café Or just an extra hour at work? Or would it be an hour to ponder on our life, an hour of remembering loved ones, an hour of reflection or just an hour to sit back and relax.

For some, it will be an hour to shop a little more, a little more time to spend at the food court in the best mall in town, a little more time to enjoy with friends. For the workaholic, it would be an extra hour to finish their work on time and if at all possible, to do some extra work. For some, it would be an extra hour of sleep. I mean, you can never have enough of sleep right? For the Indian politician, it would be an extra hour to earn some illegal money. For the brawling housewife, it would be one more hour of screaming on the housemaid. And for some more it would be just another hour of any other day, a useless 60 minutes of no constructive work.

But for some more people it would be the hour to reflect, reflect on past deeds and actions, an hour just to think about things done and whether they could have been done in any other way, an hour to remember something funny or an hour to remember something painful. For some others, it would be an hour of remembering loved ones, an hour to just sit back and take a stroll through memory lane.

It would also be the hour of appreciation, an hour just to appreciate the beauty of nature all around us. Be it in the love of a mother to her child or a flock of birds flying on a cloudless sky against the backdrop of the setting sun, it would be the hour to thank God for everything. It would be an hour of repentation for past deeds and to forgive people, for any sin that they might have committed towards us.

One might argue that how can an extra hour be beneficial. Wouldn’t it be just an extra hour in our already long schedule for a day. Well, the extra hour would also be an added bonus. We could utilize it to do something that we always wanted to do but couldn’t due to shortage of time. It could be learning to cook something or trying out bungee jumping or learning French or to learn dancing, it could be anything. An hour of just about anything we want to do.

It would be the hour to make a difference. Be it spending some time with the under privileged or standing up for what is right against all odds. It would be the hour that would  bring change to the world. An hour of giving back to the world. An hour of oneness, an hour when we forget about caste, creed, religion or ethnicity and just unite in the true spirit of humanity and stand up for truth and passion.

In a nutshell, the extra hour would manifest itself differently for every individual. It all would depend on each human’s perception i.e. whether they want to utilize it for something good or let it just be another hour. It’s all up to us what we choose to do, because we weave the strings of our own destiny. Whether we use that hour to tighten it a bit more or leave it loosened, it all comes back to our choices. So, if at all someday the thirteenth hour was to happen, make the most of it, because you never know how providence might reward you.