My echo, my shadow and me...

I grew up rolling and strolling through a world filled with little wonders. Among them were the fireflies—those winged beetles that lit up the dark lanes of the suburban town where I spent my childhood. It was more of a village, untouched by the city's electricity network and beyond the reach of its bright lights. I still have vivid memories of running and playing on the grass-covered streets, watching fireflies drift through the moonlit night. The excitement would peak when I woke up in the middle of the night to find one or two glowing softly inside the house, breaking the darkness with their flickering luminescence. For a time, my friends and I would catch them and stuff them into transparent polythene bags, turning them into makeshift lanterns. But that joy faded when an elderly man planted a thought in our young minds: "Imagine how your mother would feel if someone trapped you in a plastic bag like that!" The guilt struck deep, and we abandoned our harmless but thoug...

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...

I am trying to be silent. But the words bubbling in my mind never let that happen. Words that the processor somewhere in my brain is producing incessantly and tirelessly. Good words, bad words, cold words, warm words...There is no dearth of reasons; there is no dearth of occasions and stimuli. I have seen smiles, butterflies and fireflies getting transformed into words; words that will fuel your the journey ahead through miles of roughness. Chirruping of the morning birds, sound of creeper leaves in the breeze and rain drops take the shape of words, musical words that will flood you with emotions, keep you warm in chilling winter nights. There were thousands of occasions when I failed to stop the processor from converting the silences in between the conversations, blank spaces in between the lines into words, words that made me fret and sulk and pursue unwarranted turns on the paths. At times I put-up efforts to generate anti-words to fight with these, at times just take them...

I got curious and peeped out of the window to check what was happening on the lane out side. The little girl was crying her heart out stumping her feet on the ground. That she was crying despite being alone ( there were no one to pacify her) made me feel she was really upset about something. I usually find her playing with her playmates in the evening but never had any chance or reason for interaction. "Hey, what happened?" It seemed my question fueled her grieves and she started crying even lauder. " What happened? Why are you crying? May be I can help you out?" My second question succeeded in generating some response from her. " I am trying to collect the marbles in my hands," she said maintaining her sobbing. "But every time some of them slip out of my hand". That's when I noticed the collection of some twenty marbles she was struggling with. She had palms too small to accommodate more than five marbles at a time. Even if she managed to pi...

And there's the smell, the soothing scent of earth first time touched by the heavenly drops, the drops of rain. Yes, finally here's the first rain of the season, pulling me to the roof top...to watch the mixtu re of reactions of the surroundings. The morning birds were excited by the sudden change and started flying here and there randomly as if to express the fact that they were as happy as I am. The doves that were busy in their search for foo d took refuse in groups under whatever lit tle shed they found. The leaves of the gra pevine creeping on the wall waved with the mild wind, as if they were shying away from the first rain. Howe ver, soon with rain getting harder they will give up their efforts. In fact they will be the last ones to hold back rain water that will drip down in drops after the rain stops. The squirrels, usually fighting for food, g ot irritated by sudden disturbance. One of them started s creaming at the unwarranted disruption that was created. But...

"Why do you write?" "For chocolates! As per an agreement, for every post I write, I earn a chocolate." "Wao, that's amazing. I have heard people getting paid for blogs. First time I am hearing some one earning chocolates through blog posts." I knew my interviewer was not convinced by my answer, thought I was just kidding. Even I was not sure what was it that made me write for. Perhaps there was no specific reason, when I started writing. But now there's one... "Can you promise something?" "What’s that ?" "Can you promise that you will always be happy, what ever you are doing, where ever you are?" "I can't assure. But I’ll try my best." "No, trying best will not do. You have to promise that you will. You are a writer. You have strong imagination. You can do anything if you want. Just imagine yourself to be happy. You will." Yes, you are true. I can do anything and everything I wish. I open my eye...

"Just imagine smashing the window panes of the car one by one...How nice it will feel to hear the sound of the glasses crashing and getting scattered here and there! You'll say she's gone mad...but that's a temptation I have been nourishing from my childhood." I saw her eyes flashing with imagination while speaking out. "I know that's something I'll never do. But I can't stop myself from being delighted, imagining following the temptation," she smiled. Yes, this or that, perhaps we all are nourishing some of the wild temptations. Just like the wooden fences that tempt me. Every time I find myself surrounded by wooden fences, no matter what ever the height, I get the urge to jump over it, rather than getting out thorough the designated gate. The cricket ground was surrounded by houses with wooden fencing. Every time some out went for a full flanged over boundary, the ball used to land inside one of those boundaries. Hundreds of time, I resi...

One more post and I will be hundred. I noticed it the other day, from the numbers in the archive section of the side bar. It was beyond my imagination, that I will be able to make it so far, when I started blogging back in the summer of 2005 inspired by Soumyadip . That was just as an experiment. I had never tried writing anything more than the dry dead news reports before. The biggest question was 'Can I write?' I was a bit scared, a bit hesitant...but with time it evaporated and I slogged it to the century. Can this be a reason to celebrate? Is this an excuse big enough to gobble some bottles of beer and talk nonsense? "Tum ladko ko peene ke alawa celebrate karneka koi achha tareeka nehi choojhta kya? Bus bahan chahiye..." ("Can’t you guys think of a better way to celebrate? Always looking for excuses to drink?") No, hundred posts in a span of two years is not at all impressive. But, why these land marks? Why reaching hundred so important for you? Why do w...

My echo... Slowly the cracking sounds of the dry leaves died out and I got a feel of the rocky ground I was walking on...only sounds remained were that of wind and the last rays of the setting sun getting reflected after striking on the sharp edges of the uneven rocks... "Is there any one around? Can any one hear me?"...ear me?...r me?...r me?...me...e?...e?...e?” Words kept on bouncing till they lost all their energy in the roughness of the rocks and died out. My shadow... I saw him standing in front of the mirror with the same old tool box. "Hey, what are you doing?" "Can't you see? Trying to fix a smile!" "What a big job that is?" "Why don't you help me out? I have been trying for past one hour. But some how none of the smiles are looking good on my face?" I got busy with the screw driver...fixing different curves on the face, to fix the smile that looks perfect...after struggling for one hour mo...

There was a small stream flowing just outside of the school boundary, running parallel to it. There was a small bridge over the stream but we hardly cared for it as the stream was too small. But a year ago, last time a year ago when I had to cross it there was no way to avoid the huge concrete bride over it. The stream has grown into a river... It was a Friday and as usual there was excitement as there will be an hour long lunch break which we are going to invest in the game of cricket. That also mean's there are chances that the lunch will be sacrificed in the name of cricket. It was ensured that the bats and wickets were in perfect conditions. The moment the bell announces the lunch break, Nupur will rush to the nearby market to buy a ball. And everything happened as per the plan. The problem came when Ratul choose to hammer hard a full-toss ball with a full flung bat resulting into an 'over boundary'. The ground was not 'that big'. As per the rules of the game (a...

Sneaking in through the white fog screen the morning sun presented a new face a smile warm enough to fuel my walk thousands of miles and more... 'Smile today-tomorrow is going to be worst' If you are inspired by Murphy's philosophy, you will find yourself trying to abstract each and every ounce of reasons to put on a smile, a genuine smile and yes, there'll be no dearth of reasons when you seek... You will not be able to keep yourself from smiling when you find the squirrels and house sparrows getting into a mild fight around the issue of possession of the flatted rice you have spread on the roof top. It will definitely be difficult for you to resist feeling the bliss when in a few moments you find both the squirrel and the sparrow have given up the fight and sharing the grains like affable neighbours...one of the sparrows even dared to sit on the head of the senior most of the squirrels, and the squirrel, usually restless, choose to remain still as a host...a...

As if the winter has infused fresh blood into everything...the house sparrows seemed extremely happy as they skipped and jumped on the branches of the creeper in the front grill...the squirrels were unusually noisy. Adding to these happy music were the magpie and the fighter bulbuls...all these produced a musically noisy Saturday morning, forcing me to leave my bed earlier than usual...and I was happy with no particular reason... "What it is that you are happy about?" I tossed a question towards the man inside. But there were no answers, a silence inside that did not sound unnatural. So I tried rephrasing the question, (something I have been doing professionally through the past four years) in order to extract an indirect answer..."What makes you happy?" Ahoy! It did the trick...The biological search engine turned up with thousands of random answers in response and in a few moments I found my mind stuck in a thought-jam. Now the task in hand was to assort ...

"In the morning I had to drive with him to the tax office. Through out the way he lectured me on value addition, increasing knowledge bla bla bla...it was such a torture..." “You have had to listen to him only for an hour. I have to sit just next to him and listen to all these crap all through the day...” "Hey I have heard he was to be transferred to another position. But till now there's no symptom of that happening. If he remains in the department for a little more, is sure I am going to switch over...I just can't bear him any more." Sitting among the three I decided my next post will be something about the species called 'Boss' and the unique relationship between the bosses and their subordinates (we will be calling subs hereafter), well presented by the joke The assistant makes a mistake. Irritated, boss open fires at him... Boss: Kabhi Gadha Dakhe ho? (Have you ever seen an ass?) Assistant: (With lowered eyes) No Sir. Boss: Niche kya dekh rahe h...