The First Book I ever Read

‘The first book I ever read’… Hmm… That is a misleading topic as any that I could have for this little essay. It ought to be called the ‘First book I remember I ever read’ or to be more precise ‘The first book I ever read that I remember and that I consider a book’. But look at them they are ugly title for any essay, in fact they are so ugly that I myself would not read such an hideously titled essay if I ever got myself to write such an hideously titled essay. So let us stick with ‘The First Book I ever Read’ It may not be precise but it still is a better title.

So…

The first book I ever read was an Enid Blyton Classic and I must thank my class mate, bench mate and then best friend who prefers to be called by the name Sam Rave much to my wry (Look who is talking) for introducing me the wonderful world of fantasy that the world of letters could erect. I still remember the tattered and much dilapidated book that he had in his hand one day. I still remember the musky aroma of the antique pages, its wonderfully faded shade and little termite ridden edges. That for me still is the genuine experience of reading. The torn covers and the crinkles that crisscrossed the illegible front cover. I remember asking him the book, I remember taking it home, I remember opening the book and I remember the aged smell of wisdom drowning me. That day I was lost to reality.

I went on to read every one of the books in Enid Blyton’s  Famous Five Series and then other series and ten more serious books, then came classics, then literature, philosophy, then contemporary, then art and then poems and then I was as much part of the world of letters as ink and inkpot was. The cozy world of carefree fantasy that he has unwittingly introduced me has changed me forever. So much so that my mother and my soon to be wife will have quite a few bones to pick with him, if ever he got too close to them. I was in love by the time I turned to the last page of that book, I had fallen in love, so much in love that within ten minutes I had my nose buried in another Enid Blyton fantasy. He was quite a match maker I guess.

The first book I read was ‘Five on a Treasure Island’ and I have never stopped smiling since, never stopped dreaming since the day I turned the cover and smelled in the musky air of letters.

The Things we take for Granted

A sun and the moon, the rain and the clouds that bring it, the flowers that bloom in the spring and the leaves that falls in autumn. The life as we know it, the people we love and even love itself, the buildings that surround us and the people that inhabit them. The food we eat and the water we drink, the air we breathe and even the planet we inhabit. It’s just mind boggling the amount of things we take for granted, the things we never doubt or the things that we for not one moment think that there may come a time when the will cease to exist. At times I wonder how men can be so oblivious at others I feel that it’s the whole point of living.

When I was seeing a little ad recently it dawned on me, the amount of things that we take for granted as in fact very big dreams for many people. There are people who miss an lack the basic pleasures and even necessities of lives. When we live our life in opulence we forget the plight of the less fortunate ones. There was a time when I was obtuse enough to believe that what I had was what I deserved and the ones who did not have it simply did not deserve it. How wrong I was! But life tends to catch up with you, in this case all I had to do was open my eyes and I could see how stupid I was to have lived all my years in a rather small oyster.

But when I came out, when I saw the world and what was happening there, when I met people who were not like me, when I talked to them, shared a laugh with them and cried with them in their sorrows. I realized that I was wrong, so very wrong to have thought that they deserved less. In fact the truth is that most of them deserve a whole lot that what I do. There are children who have never known what a birthday is when I have celebrated my each birthday twice and trice. There are people who have not had a decent meal in their lives even when I have wasted food and never bothered to give it another thought.

There are moments in life, moments of greater clarity and purpose. Moments of recognition and realization, moments when you realize your wrong and see the path forward, these are moments that happens in every man’s life whether he decides to act on it or let it pass is a call that he alone has to make and the consequences however big or small he alone has to accept. This was for one of such moments when I realized my place and act in the world and when I realized the little good things in life. I wanted to say I learned something but I guess it’s too early and going a bit too say to say that. I guess only time will tell what it has done to more or if it has done anything at all to me.

Bonds to Cherish

It is possible that in the tumultuous lives that we all live, so full of twist and turns and not so happy endings, we may lose sight of who we are and what we are. These are the times that we truly question ourselves aren’t they. I am not here to lecture on what we ought to do and or suggest ways to cope with things that I have no idea of. But I can safely say that in thee difficult times it is our friends and family that keeps us together. That keeps us from falling into pieces. These are the people who have feed you those memories whose hand we take when the going gets tough; they have given us days by which we can swear that the times were better.

There are many bonds in life that are far too valuable to be neglected. The bonds those are inexpensive yet invaluable. The bonds that make you want to strive to be a better person every second of every hour of every day. In life we seldom comes across people that stick for the long, some become your wife, others become your best buddies and sometimes we are blessed with blood relations that are the best in the world. Sometimes we get brothers who would die by you and parents who would swear by you, not always but yet sometimes they do happen. Even for the less fortunate ones among us we get to be with friends who are just as intimate as a relation, if not more.

I myself has been lucky, for I have not found just one, but a bunch of them. In fact I have found half a dozen of them in my college life. I consider myself far too lucky in this regard. One among them became the person with whom I have decided to share the rest of my farting and the not so better part of myself with. The others would hitherto be my best men and women for the rest of life, godfathers and god mothers for the my, sorry, our children. Uncles and aunts who they will adore , the kind I will have a hard time preventing from spoiling my children.

When I walked up the stairs of this building with hardly a small back pack and an half-filled pen, with dreams that were taller that the tallest skyscrapers. I for one did not see this coming. I did not believe that I would be making buddies that will last a life time. But I made a bunch. I did not believe in love, yet I found the perfect girl. I had reservations for my future, yet it has never ever looked so promising. For what it’s been worth , The time I spend with my friends , squalling and trashing, fighting and abusing, loving and caring, looking out for one another and not. Those endless hours I have spent in there company gossiping. The insidious love and the improper infidelity. These were the best days of my life.

Great moments are born from great opportunity. That's what you have here, tonight, boys. That's what you've earned here tonight

I remember this quote today, because four years back I was presented with a great opportunity , an opportunity to make friends with best and most amazing individuals in the world, and thank god you made me grab it and make  great memories of them.

Memoirs of another Era

To the eyes of a two year me, life was rater different from what it is now. It was full of magic and everything was a kaleidoscopic in its own nature. I have no real memory but rather flashes of it, vestiges of a memorable time popping up like bubbles in a champagne glass. These are not memories that I can make any sense of but are rather distinctive and certainly not very descriptive in nature. I don’t remember all of them ( I was just a couple of years old, my brain was still finding places to keep stuff and had other serious problems like food and potty to bother about) but I do remember a few of them and of course one of them has a lot to do with braids.

When I started thinking about braids and what the to write about them, frankly I was turning blank, with the very little hair that I myself has that was no surprise. That’s when I realized that I should stop being a stupid narcissist and concentrate along another lines. I donned my thinking hat on and started thinking what thoughts braids inspire in me. One thought, rather one memory stood out of all. It was that of a two year old me, the hazy vision of the dangling braids all in sepia like in any good flashback from a beloved part of my life. I could see through the baby eyes of mine the life that was in and around me.

The first of the visions that I remember has my mother’s face in it, much younger and with much less wrinkles, so much younger and carefree than I ever remember her. I could faintly hear her smiles as she cajoled me. I could feel the delight in her giggles as I hung on to her braids and carried out various scientific experiments on like, biting, tasting, pulling and what not. I can remember the cries of utter delight that I let out and the immediate effect it has on my mother’s face. I remember watching the smile that reciprocate on her face, her eyes lighting up as if she was beholding something miraculous n her hands. Something that only a mother can feel for her son I guess.

Every one of my memories of my grandmother has something to do with braids. I have seen beautiful pictures of my ravishingly beautiful grandmother at my home. She had a very long braid, so beautiful were they, But that not the one that I remember. By the time I was born she had lost the blackness of her hair and her braids were no longer that strong but I can say that they would put most girls to shame. I remember I her braids, much before she lost it to old age and its ailments. It was like a silver thread, so beautiful; I can even remember seeing them shine brightly in the sunlight. The little me was so fascinated by the games her braids would play with the light, I would try chasing it, jumping on it and everything else I was capable of them.

I don’t know whether I could go on and say that braids has done a lot to my childhood, or that it played an important part in my younger years. But I can say this that though I have no braids, braids have featured in some the most cherished of my childhood memories. My memory of my mother when I was little was one the most beautiful memories that I have of my mother, a personal favorite, one among the very few where I remember her as carefree and elated. Huh! Memories sometimes that is all that we may have for ourselves. My only wish is that these memories be real and not just a product of my runaway imagination.

Story written for : Beautiful Ends to your Beautiful Braids!

The Words of the Prophet on Children - Khalil Gibran

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

The first time I heard these words, it was in the television while I was in my room. though I came running out to find, who what and why of it, it was gone. It was years before I would ever encounter these words again. It was not because I searched less or in sources that were somehow limited, but the first few words were what I was left with and with that I had to searched. They may be true but I searched and continued to do so. Then one day when I least expected, in a place I least expected I ran into the book that because of its sheer petiteness that I chose to read it. And Voila there they were the same words, in all its majesty there they lay. So true and so profound and here I share it with you the words that I so loved and searched for during much of my life.