Misted Morning

Uneartly, elusive, sylvan
A gentle haze that pervades the morning
Dewdropped petals, cool breeze
misted eyes, warm coffee
Lingering dreams......


BY NANDINI

A MILLION LITTLE PIECES


Isn't it perfect how diverse little pieces,
form up a harmonious whole?
The world as we see it,
So many lives,
Irrevocably interlinked,
Yet so distinct,different, diverse.
The absence felt,
of the tiniest piece.
The events that make up a life,
People come and people go.
The far reaching consequences of the events,
often remain unthought of.
But life goes on,
thoughts and opinions moulded by the way it treats us.
A platitude, and yet so true,
'Everything happens for a reason.'
Makes you wonder,
A life devoted to a solitary thing?
Or do you need varied bits and pieces,
To make a perfect, complete whole?

BY NANDINI

The sporting spirit...


“The important thing is to find what the error is. Not who made it .” Something I read in a (cheesy) quote calendar. And just today, the entire Paes Bhupathi debacle just made me reflect on these words. The performance of India in the Asiad games tells a woeful tale. The winner China won 147 gold medals, India won 8.
There will be, I am sure, a lot of debates following this on the news channels, the papers, the media in general. On whether sports are not given enough importance in Indian schools, the society etc. But maybe there is a different reason behind the dismal performances. Maybe the answer lies in our attitudes itself.
For instance, the entire circus that Paes made. There is no professionalism in our sport at the end of the day. The fact that one needs to be a team player, to sacrifice for the team, if necessary, is rarely accepted by sports people in India. The ruthless professionalism that the Australian cricket team displays, is what makes them the winners they are.
And this brings us to yet another point, that definitely in the Indian ethos, that killer instinct is lacking. Indians are bred more towards contentment and seeking happiness. The inner drive, the motivation, which eventually lead to the sweat and sacrifices that ensure a win, are often just not part of the Indian psyche.
And as to Paes questioning the commitment and fitness of Bhupathi…..well, one just cannot stop laughing. The idea of Indian sportspeople questioning any one s commitment generally brings to mind the line of “Well, look who’s talking?”.
I am not saying that there aren’t committed sportspeople in India. On the contrary, there are shining examples of what we could achieve combining talent and commitment. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Irfan Pathan, Anil Kumble, Nisha Millet, Sania mirza, Raj Vardhan Singh Rathore….there are quite a few examples that come to the mind. But you will generally find that these truly committed individuals are the ones who prefer to fight their battles on the field. You will not find them dragging their battles to the media, making a circus out of it. They prefer to let their actions speak for them. Which, if you ask me, is the smartest way of fighting the battle. Because , at the end of the day, sport is all about action. Its about following a strategy, playing and winning. It is not about back biting or bitching to the media, it is not about MPs sitting back and introducing policy. Its about professionalism, about not letting these external factors get to your game. Which I think Mahesh Bhupathi has displayed wonderfully in the Asiad games, by continuing to play with Leander Paes and winning the gold. Something definitely the sportspeople of our country could try and emulate....

BY NANDINI
P.S. This was written quite some time ago(when the Asiad games was in the news)....just posting it now....

VERITY....

You look behind the laughter
To find the confusion inside.
You look behind the success
To find the sweat and the sacrifices.
You look behind the insincere words
To find the emptiness inside.
You look behind the magnanimity
To find the guilt of having the undeserved.
You look behind the popularity
To find the fear of being alone.
Sometimes, you need to look behind the smooth exteriors,
To find the chaos that reigns within.
To understand,
To find verity.

BY NANDINI

TIME..

Day goes by, day after day
A week passes, the minutes have passed
A month is ending, A new day comes
Month goes by, time is passing
A year comes to an end, time for a new start
Have many things changed? Yes..
Has anything changed? No..
Time has a nature of never letting itself be known
Until the mind takes over, thinking of the years gone past
Only then the sense of time is realized
Things change but the mind stops at some instances
Time never does...memories are formed
Time looks on by, when the mind thinks back
At time and how it passed it by…so many times…
The mind, may be constant as is
Though events might change
Time, unaltered ever, smiles away…
If the mind can ever grasp the nature of time
Their inescapable bond will become comradeship…

BY BHARGAVI

SENSE AND SENSELESSNESS

Has anything senseless ever made sense to you? But the very fact that it may have made sense rules out the fact that it was senseless. Now, this makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
See, it’s possible to give sense, or meaning to something as senseless as “senselessness”. By just turning it round and round. Interpret and reinterpret. Twist the senseless and turn it to make sense.

It’s like this famous girl=evil derivation. If you don’t already know about it, here it is.

Girl= time * money (proportional, rather. Because a girl uses up all of a guy’s money and takes up all his time)
But time = money (again, proportional as in a job the more time you work, the more you are paid)
Therefore, girls = money * money = (money) ^2
But money is the “root” of all evil;
Or money = √evil.
So, girls = (√evil) ^2
Implies, girls = evil.

So, you see girl=evil! Oh, it’s senseless, you’d say. But it did make certain sense that you smiled at the ingenious logic, dint it?

So, literally, sense can be made out of anything, even the senseless. That doesn’t, however, make it any less senseless! If you look carefully at any such situation, you’ll know that it makes sense only at the first glance. If you look at it more closely, you’ll find a major flaw in the argument, which would be covered up by something less concrete but more attractive and creative.

Everyday situations can be compared to this. When you have said something unreasonable or illogical (you yourself know it) but cant take back the words, and have to go ahead and put forward an argument, this is what comes out. Senseless logic. And, of course, they are any truly senseless person’s words of wisdom!
And, quite often, one gets away with it, if one is ingenious and convincing enough (the above example being one such). Either it is so absurd that other person really doesn’t get a thing and ends up doubting his own scope of understanding; or he is so completely taken aback by the argument that he can’t help finding it funny and truly appreciates the ingenuity! Otherwise, one just confronts cold looks and pursed lips and one sheepishly runs out of the room; so much for one’s brave stand!

In fact, many of the justifications we give to ourselves for our many actions are quite comparable. Just say something, anything, and we are at least superficially convinced of the correctness of the deed, or forget the correctness, even the reason for the action! As it is, we do a million reasonless, senseless things in our daily lives. So, this farce sense is playing in our heads at every instance, trying to give meaning to the senselessness in our lives (knowingly or unknowingly)…

BY BHARGAVI

SPARKS WORTH THE SMOKE?

Its three days after Diwali, and yet, the noise of the firecrackers is incessant. Today, I finished my evening walk and returned home to my block of apartments, when I saw Diwali still being celebrated full-swing. 5 flower pots being smoked up at once, you might call it a pretty sight! But the fountain of sparks, itself lasting for hardly 10 seconds, leaves behind enough smoke to last for as long the earth lasts...more and more being added every minute…

The whole scenario got me wondering. If one really wants to verify the conviction behind the most eloquent talks about pollution and ozone layer depletion, all one has to do is be in town for Diwali! Where are all the no-smoke campaigns? Where did all the no-noise-pollution speech-makers disappear? Are they bursting crackers themselves? Most likely. “But it’s a celebration, yaar” many would whine, but is there no better way to celebrate, I ask? Sending off rockets zooming in all funny directions, sounding like a true UFO, right in the middle of a gully as narrow as a classroom bench, with rows of shabbily constructed buildings lining both edges, and cars and cycles honking right on the “celebration” sight is not really my idea of celebration! But, apparently, it is for many Bangaloreans!

Sitting at home, I end up wasting half my time waiting for the 10000-walas and 50000-walas to finish speaking their minds; and the sight of the “pretty” blasts of rockets in the night sky is not one bit “pretty” for me! The only picture that comes to my mind is that of millions of homeless little kids toiling away in dark godowns and the earth enveloped in smoke and more smoke and more smoke…and we left to perish…
Consequences of our heartfelt “celebrations”??

BHARGAVI

DRUGS N DILEMMA

It was a normal day as usual. Madhav was grateful for 45 minutes of free time after two consecutive periods of physics and chemistry. He shook his head at the thought and later smiled at the free time he was now being given. It is not everyday that one gets a free period. Being a studious sort, he took out his math notebook and started working on his assignment. Though just a minute ago he had sighed at the thought of one and a half hrs of physics and chem, the thought has vanished when he remembered the math problems his teacher had given him to solve. Math was his passion. Head bent, he worked on, scribbling furiously in his notebook.

The class was noisy as hell; as usual; and though he hated the noise, he was now used to it and it dint bother him anymore. Alok, his friend (a physics freak) and assignment-partner sat next to him. They sat on the second bench in the far left row. A bunch of girls sat huddled together at the back of the class, gossiping and giggling in the far right row. Not one of them interested him. A couple of nerdy ones sat in the front. They were more bearable. The back of the class was infested with the gang of rowdies. All they did was hoot for anything and everything that was said, and whose prime motive in life was to disrupt every class. They respected none and none respected them, at least Madhav didn't. They dared each other to ask girls out (though what fun they had in that he could never figure out… At least the girls weren’t stupid enough to take them seriously!), to stand up in the middle of an important lesson about parabolas to yell “Hey teacher, you suck!”(only to be heard by all and NOT the teacher – what losers!), to see who has more porn on their mobiles. Most of them had girlfriends and messaged each other (even if they were sitting just two seats away) in the middle of every class. Most of them had bad grades.

They had tried to pull Madhav into all their “fun” when he had first come to this PU college, but when they found out his real nature, safely left him out of all this. That was when he had given them an idea about what he really thought about them; not yelling, but quietly and firmly. They exchanged furtive glances with each other for a couple of days and tried to pacify him. But when he dint budge, they labelled him a loser and dint bother about him ever since.

Mayank was the only other person he respected in this place, other than Alok. Alok was a true nerd, even by his standards, but he did his work well and didn’t make a fuss about anything. Mayank was OK, he sometimes hung about with those guys, but he was an interesting person to talk to. The three had lunch together and often discussed various things, ranging from wars to physics to deep-sea-diving. Four months had passed this way.

Today, Madhav and Alok were deeply into their work, when Mayank came over, his face quite pale, and asked them to put their pens downs. They both looked up, startled, for Mayank never disturbed them when they were working. At such times, when they had a free period, he hung out with the back-benchers, laughing with them. But today, he looked serious, and had interrupted them. They put their work away and he squeezed in with them in their desk. He said in a quiet tone, “I have learnt something freaky, dude.” When they asked him what it was, he said “I think those guys are on drugs, man…”.

Alok visibly shuddered, but Madhav merely lifted his eyebrows. Alok started stammering and started questioning Mayank madly. His usual silent character vanished. He was thoroughly excited. Madhav was quiet, listening to it all. Alok went “Are you sure, dude? How do you know? Did you hear them say so themselves? Are all of them on it? How did they say it feels? Sheesh, dude! I thought they only smoked and went to pubs occasionally...but DRUGS!! I can’t imagine! You must be wrong, man…However silly they might be, no one will ever do drugs! Most of them are soo rich, what reason would they have for doing drugs? I don’t believe it!”

He was not 100 percent sure, Mayank said, but he’d been having many hints suggesting the same. For instance, they kept referring to this place called “Black Dip”, which he had assumed to be some pub till now...but two days back he had heard someone say it was a dealer’s hideout. And they did talk a lot about grass and weed. They were not too tight-lipped about these words…and they did have more than one meaning. After college, they kept signaling each other slyly with signs only they knew…Madhav had noticed it too, but yesterday Mayank had seen something he couldn’t quite make out. Riyaan, the leader of the gang, the loudest and tallest of the lot, had got something out and passed it around. They had not noticed Mayank in their excitement. They all looked at it and sighed wistfully. But Riyaan then said they could all “have a shot at it” and their faces immediately lit up.

That evening, they signaled each other a lot more than usual, and went off one by one in the same direction. Mayank had watched all this. He thought of following them, but decided it was too dangerous and went worried back home. He decided something had to be done about all this and had thus told Madhav and Alok. And now, Alok was acting loony.

* * *

That lunch, all they discussed was “What is to be done?”

Alok: I think we should tell the authorities, man. This is serious stuff.
Mayank: Are you mad? If these guys find out its we who’ve split, you can be sure we’ll be dead the next day.
Madhav: I’m not so sure. First of all, they need not know its we who’ve split. And even if they do, I don’t think they are strong enough to do anything about it.
Mayank: You don’t know them, dude! I hang around with them much more than you do. And, I’m telling you, they can be pretty nasty! Dangerous even.
Alok: I heard they cut their own hands and parts of their bodies with bloody words to have permanent scars...
Mayank: Yes, that’s right. I’ve seen them do it. They even asked me to, but I said no..
Madhav: They may do all this, but that doesn’t show they are strong enough to do any serious damage to anyone but themselves and others who are as dumb as them. They are just highly jobless jerks.
Alok: So should we tell the authorities?
Mayank: I don’t know…the risk is too high.
Madhav: I don’t know if its worth our time and effort. Its their life, at the end of the day. Not ours. And there are enough warnings about drugs and things given to us daily, by our teachers and parents. If they are woolly-headed enough not to take them seriously, its their problem, after all, isn’t it? Why should we waste our time and effort on such losers?
Alok: But they are our classmates, dude! Don’t you care about them?
Mayank: So, what do we do at last??

* * *

This is a situation faced by many students in schools and colleges world-over. What is your take on the issue? Have you ever faced this dilemma? What do you think Madhav, Mayank and Alok should do?

BY BHARGAVI