short trip home

Once more I fly home, fly home to my home. Upon reaching the Srinagar airport the first thing that struck me was that I needed to get into the airport building as quickly as I can, I was shivering with cold even when it was 11:30 and the sun was shining. The next thing that struck me was the gauge on freedom of communication enforced by the Govt. My cell phone was not working nor could I find any public phone in the so called international airport. Somehow I managed to make the necessary call requesting a co-passenger.
After leaving the airport when I was passing through the city, I felt that something was missing, the city which is usually full of hustle bustle seemed to be dead ..... something had changed. The winter made its presence felt; be it through the shivering of my body or the people around me fully clad in woollens especially the pherans, the pink cheeks, the kangris, red noses ......
After reaching home the first thing I asked for was a kangri and pheran. Later in the evening the lack of freedom of communication haunted me again, the land line phone in my home has not been working for past 4-5 months but still we pay the Govt. owned telephone company (BSNL). I needed to make a call so came out of my home and started to scan the market for a S.T.D booth, after scanning the whole market could find just one. The booth was full of people, finally when I got the chance to make the call , people behind me told me to make it quick. The next whole day did not venture out , only in the evening did I visit one of my uncles and a close friend of mine. While returning it was dark and with no street lights it was pitch black, the result I slipped in the open drain about which I had no idea. I think these freak accidents have become part and parcel of my every trip to home.
As I finished typing the above lines message came that an elderly lady in our neighbourhood had passed away, so I left everything and went to offer the last prayers (Jinazah). Once more the death made it overwhelming presence felt. No matter what ever we do, whatever we achieve at last we leave this world empty handed on others shoulders. As we moved in the form of a procession towards the graveyard , every incoming vehicle stopped on the side of the road to let the jinazah pass, this made me realise no doubt a lot had been lost but still something remains intact here ....

All the world's a stage ....

Shakespeare wrote “All the world's a stage” and depicted that we are puppets in the hands of destiny, we are just brought, made to play our respective parts and made to leave the stage. He gave equal importance to all the stages, but to me the stage when we are playing our roles is more important. At this stage we have control of what we intend to do and what we do.
If we see around ourselves we can observe that almost everybody is acting, pretending to be what they are not. Some people pretend to be not hurt when they actually are, some pretend to be caring when they dame care about anything, some pretend to be all good when they too have a very dark side, some pretend to be themselves when they don’t know who they are, some pretend to be intellectuals..... , the list is never ending but the question is why to pretend after all. For some, the reason might be that they don’t want to hurt others feelings, some want to be accepted as one of the kind, at the same time some want to be recognised better than rest. The worst reason to me seems to think that the other person may be useful in future and pretend what you think he/ she wants you to. I have got fed up with pretending what I am not , fed up with pretending that I am a stone, fed up with giving hope when I know I won’t be able to help, fed up with pretending that there is no end , I am fed up!

The habit of wining makes you a coward ..........

It has become a strange thing on the part of parents to make their children believe that they have been brought in to this world only to win and often achieve what their parents failed to. So as the child grows he runs only to win and not to run along friends. They are so afraid of losing that they do what ever is in their hands to avoid it, go to extreme limits . So from childhood these people try to make their life loss proof, they choose friends on basis of their strengths, choose a team which is most expected to win. With these tactics they get a winning streak , but with time they forget what losing is and when the not so likely loss comes their way they don’t know what to do , they don’t know how to handle it ( be it on the professional or personal front) because they never where raised to handle a loss . At this juncture most of these people crumble and shatter to pieces never to rise again. So there is nothing wrong in learning how to loose ..... :)