Now we have a Century : A Letter of Cognizance

Dear Friend,

                              When I started my blog way back in 2009, I have had no idea that I would ever be able to stick with for long enough, let alone be able write my 100th post. But here we are and I sure owe it all to you. When I started thinking seriously about writing I was apprehensive, uncertain and greatly confused, but I did sure want to come out and give it my best. When I finally decided to go through with my plan , Pages off Life was born.

                             Pages off Life was never the run-away success that I hopped it to be. but most of its juvenile years it spent going in and coming out of one hiatus after the other. But pages of Life was my only project that stood the test of time, when my other blogs just withered away there was something special about it that made it survive the hard times and the only thing that made its survival possible is you my friends. 

                               Before 2011, I had not many followers nor many readers but still I kept writing and slowly  you came to my site, some leafed through, some dared to come back and some took a liking to it that I never will understand. Everyone one of you made my day one way or the another. You gave me a valuable gift, the gift of your time and further more your criticism and guidance that made me  a better writer post after post. I am proud today not because I have many followers but because I have made many a friends, because I have had the privilege to be among a magnificent crowd of remarkable people.

                           I thank you today more than ever for your support and guidance, for the heart that cared and the words that guided me. the truth is if I am a writer then you have made me one. It is you who have shown me the strength when I was in doubt and it is you have shown me belief when I was lacking in faith. Page off Life may be my blog but it is not mine, it is ours to be.

 Thank you, Friends!

Wet with Tears

I just finished reading Tuesday’s with Morrie by Mitch albom and if you have had read it once then maybe; just maybe you would know why I have titled my post so. The truth is that I have not cried so much, at least not produced so much tears by volume in the last several years. This book undeniably has struck a few chords with me. I was weeping thru the life Morrie Schartz and I honestly have no idea why and I believe may be writing this would fetch me an answer. This is just another of my aimless self-inquests.

When Morrie battled it out triumphantly with ALS and died a serene death that many among us desperately dream about, his left many a men bewildered at its blatant simplicity. It may forever remain the enigmas of life, the secret of self-discovery and salvation.  It occurred to me I am a sad example for any form life, no real purpose, no real dreams and certainly no real ambitions and the worst of all the ugly fact that I am doing nothing about it.

There are three kinds of people in this world. Firstly the ones who knows what he wants and does what must be done,  secondly the ones who have no idea about it and hence does nothing whatsoever about it. These two I believe must be happy at all points in their life, for the first are a contend lot and the second bask in evanescence of ignorance and hitherto has nothing to y and a worry about. But sadly I belong to a third group of troubled, lonesome, frustrated mob, the ones that what they wants and does nothing about it and hence settles themselves to self-pity and a life full of discontent and emptiness. May be it made me realize the emptiness inside of me and that’s why I cried, maybe I cried because I know what I wanted to be and just realized that I was nothing that I promised myself I will be.

Mitch talks about a lot in the 200 pages that the book really is, there was so much love, compassion and gratitude. These things touch your heart no matter in what colour and brand they come in. The truth about life is simple, we crave love and we crave it with all our heart. It is to the soul what fresh air is to the body, we thrive on it and when we don’t get enough we suffocate and our soul perishes. I quote from a recent movie “make sure when the final buzzer goes off on your life BHeeeeee you have no regrets”. I makes me think, How many of us can really say that if this very moment as I am writing these words and you are reading these we die,  we would have no regrets. Not me! I could very well haunt the attic of my own house due to the sheer volume of unfinished business that’s left. May be it’s the realization that made me cry like a new born.

Or maybe it’s just a sign that I am still human and I have that small bit of humanity left forgotten in some deep corner of my institutionalized heart. It always occurred to me that this was one good excuse or reason however you may take it to provide for my momentary lapses and occasional tryst with reality. Many a times I have took shelter under this roof and I see no reason why not today, why not now.

There is one more reason for the profound volatility that I experience now emotionally, the fact that life is short and succinct is not one that I am unfamiliar with but the truth is that I dawns on me time and time again and leaves me in a kind of a emotional upheaval.

I end now for I have no more to say!

PS: I don’t know why I wrote this, I felt a need to. I not know what I meant by it, I just went by my heart. The truth is my emotions are as mixed up as the post is forgive me! guide me!

A Great Speech for Humanity's Sake

The wonderful speech from The movie "The Great Dictator" featuring Charlie Chaplin.

I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible -- Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me I say, "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die; and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers: Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers: Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, "the kingdom of God is within man" -- not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite!! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise!! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

Soldiers: In the name of democracy, let us all unite!!!

Moments of Silent Pleasure

I have read some where that love is not looking at each other for hours without end but it is looking at the horizon together. I have repeatedly failed to grasp what it meant but now things start coming to light. The fact that love has a language on its on and its synchronizes two souls that in otherwise would have nothing in common. The purpose of hope and ambition in love is simple, it serves as the bread and butter of love and it essentially distinguishes love from lust. When in love you know where you want to be now, where you want to be in one year time and where you want to be after a decade. It certainly is not planning but it certainly is a subconscious route map to where you are headed in love. Some understands it, some cherish it and some are scared the hell out of by it. Some run from it, some hide from it and some boldly face its adrenalin rush. 

Love is not what is said and written about. Love is the happiness, the silence and meaning of wordless-ness. Cherish it, embrace it and most of all dare to fall into its depth.

The Days that I Fear

It had happened at last, I knew it would come one day. The haunting realities of old age makes it impossible to forego. I knew it would happen it would only be a matter of time. The truth is that upsets me is not that it happened but I was not here by his side when it happened. I was not here to catch him when he fell, I was not here to sit by his side when he was lying in the hospital bed, and I was not here to take flowers and fruits to cheer him up.  It strikes me hard and I can’t forgive myself for making him be all alone when he needed me the most.

When I woke up yesterday, it was a beautiful day; a day like any other. The day was not meant to be anything other than what I have been planned. It was supposed to be an all holes barred canister of monotony but the heavens had plans that were greater than mine. When I reached home after a meticulously planned day which was executed to perfection, I was confronted with a rather off handed remark from my aunt. She enquired whether I knew about my grandfather been taken for a ‘service’.  All I could respond with was a rather confused look and a big question mark hovering over my head.

Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth and lean to hear my feeble voice.
Black Elk

I was to be at the receiving end of some very shocking news. While I was away in my college worrying about my petty exams a whole lot had happened here. One day my grandfather felt dizzy and almost collapsed, My mother and aunt tried sugar solution thinking that it was a drop in his sugar level, then the called a doctor who lives across the street, she came in and did some preliminaries and then they called my uncle who is a doctor and he was quick to recommend a hospital and insisted that they take him there instantly. He was admitted in Intensive Care Unit and was under observation for three days and a hoard of test was being conducted on him. All this while I was laughing, joking and partying with my friends, unaware of anything that was going on in my hostel.  I despise myself.

Photo by     Corbis Super RF 

All my life my grandfather was there for me, when I took my first steps , when I passed my first class, when I was not able to sleep and when I was down with a fever. He would come to me from anywhere he was. Je would abandon all that was important and come to me sit by me and care for me  and now when he was sick and tired where was I? Writing exams of no real significance in life? I was doing things that I could have written at some other time and passed with the same ease. No body informed me what had happened and nobody told me that something was wrong and I did not feel it, I should have felt it when he was sick. I should have. He does so should I shouldn’t I? My grandfather had asked everyone not to tell me anything.

"...there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson."
Author: Victor Hugo

Now I know not what to do, Should I be angry at him for not telling me anything or should I be happy that he is alright? Should I be making a tantrum about why not me? Or should I just be ‘adult’ about it. But one thing is sure if at all anything happens to him which I believe will not and I am not here by his side holding his hands during his last few moments in life I know I will not forgive myself ever.