My echo, my shadow and me...

It often makes me wake up with a jerk. “Had a dream of the big rat again?” asks wife with tone of absolute certainty. She has got used to it. I dream myself in sleep when a big rat hits rushing from the other side of the bed and I roll down the bed to be dropped on the floor. I can feel the momentous but immense feeling of weightlessness, while on the free fall, till I hit the floor. Display intercom flashed “Boss calling”. “Can you come to my room?”…I found Vivek was also in the room. “Close the door”. While following his instructions, a felt the big question mark that popped up somewhere in my mind. This is something he hardly does, closing the door while talking to his “team“. I took the seat next to Vivek. “You must be wondering why boss has called both us together today!” A dramatic pause! Vivek and I looked at each other’s face with extreme curiosity. “Why???” I felt the question mark growing bigger and bigger, as if to explode out of my head and almost shrank to zero when boss’s...

I do not remember what it was that made me realise, 'I am moving too fast'. I pulled in the breaks to a jerking halt. I looked back to check how far I have travelled...the meter says I did travel a lot. But how can I still see the 'square one' clearly with my naked eyes? And where's the trace of 'me' that I am looking for? Why can't I see even the vague impression when I look forward? Was my journey like a wind mill? ' Running fast, but travel no far'? It was some twenty years back. Just like many others, I asked the simple three word question ' Who am I?...Finding no one around to answer, I started my journey on foot. A search, for an identity... And now when I glance back, sitting still on the corner of the tranqil lake, I can recollect answers to many questions that I have gathered during the journey so far...I know what I am, I know what I can do, I know what I can't...I know what I have gathered, what I had gathered and lost while ru...

"A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” Lao Tzu Don’t know whether we were good travelers, but seemed to be a little bit of it. We left home with the idea of exploring the enchanting land of Palampur, without knowing what plans the almighty had for us. While negotiating with the Taxi operators in the Pathankot railway station, we ended up charting out a plan to first visit places in McLoad Ganj and Dharamshala (the land of Buddhist monks) and explore the vast green lands of Palampur on the way back. Though we maintained this travel plan till the end, the tit bits were changed many times in between with many omissions and additions. And at the end of the journey, when we were back to square one, there was consensus amongst us, it was a journey well made. “I see my path, but I don't know where it leads. Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel it.” Rosalia de Castro Travelling on the misty roads to Mcload Ganj, I realized the ...

These days, I can hear my heart saying its time you confront your life, its time you nourish dreams fill some colours to the grey grey world And I followed it, added a colour, a crimson colour full of life. I can feel the spaces inside my heart getting filled with sight and smell of rose and sounds of echoing laughter. I can feel it growing fonder, quieter, warmer then ever. I am struggling for words to paint my heart. There are thousands of them. As it usually happens, in these moments I find it difficult to choose the best of them...all of them dearer, all of them nearer...I am sitting quite till they grow strong enough to break the barricade erected long time back. I am waiting for the day they unfold their wings again, to touch the vast blueness above. These days, I can hear my heart saying the day is not far...

So many times it h appens. Standing at cross roads, you try to decide whether you follow your heart or your head. After hours of deliberation, you arrive at a decision, assure yourself that you will stand by yourself on any eventuality. You take the turn and enter the wonderland of Alice. Life is never the same again. While in transition somehow the bitterness, that drove you to the decisive turn, goes to the posterior. You try to recollect the smiling faces and the echoing laughters and wish they were a part of the newness around you. Can't avoid the painful realization that these wishes can never be true... With time you too manage to change yourself, at least to fit yourself into the new world. But some how, even after traveling thousands of miles, you find you are not far away from the turn you have taken. As if you are traveling on a circle, with no starting point defined and no end too.

He tossed the coin in air, waited till it comes back to his hands, checked the result and tossed it again...I saw him repeating the same for several times. "What's that for?" "I'm in a dilemma." "So, you are trying to solve it by tossing!" He nodded positively in reply. "But how many times do you toss to arrive at a decision? Don't you think it's foolish to let a metal coin decide things for you?" "Yes, even I also feel that way. That's why I'll be tossing till I get the decision right, the decision that is mine, till the toss takes me to that. At times first toss takes me there. Today it's taking time. I have tossed some thirty times till now," there was an oblique smile in his face. He resumed tossing...