Category: Creative

Dreams Shattered – 3

Click Here to read the previous part.

Akarsh heard people shouting in the news discussion bulletin on TV. They were arguing about something about Kathua. He overheard his father slowly talking to her mother, meanwhile keeping a check that nobody else can listen to him. He understood the case while his father explained everything to his mother in hushed tone.

Image Courtesy: Google Images

Akarsh felt disgusted, hoping that is just fiction that he had just heard. He felt disturbed. The voices which he can hear on a daily basis were making more noise than ever today. He felt like the tipping point seemed to be closing. He thought of focusing on the voice that gave him direction. He couldn’t hear the voice today. He focused and tried harder. Finally the voice answered. He felt a disappointment in the voice today.

“You sensed what I wanted to talk about.” he asked the voice.

“Everybody is talking about that only. You are too small to be handling that topic.”, the voice answered.

“Maybe that is the mistake we have been making.”

The voice thought for a moment. It could come up with no answer. It shrugged.

After a long silence, it spoke:

“There is no way back from this. The epidemic that is rape, has affected India these days, goes beyond my comprehension. Is it religion, is it stupidity, or is it such hard placed belief that a cry for help doesn’t shake a person anymore? It was just to prove a point, I heard.

Nothing remains of her. The only daughter of the family rested in the ground for good. It seems we are obsessed with burying women to the ground one at a time. How do you even determine what she did to deserve such fate. Probably temple was not the safest place for her. Probably, God doesn’t exists everywhere.

We promised after Nirbhaya that we wouldn’t let anything of that sort happen. But look at us now. Making the same mistake, hiking the same path, placing blame on other’s, while failing to realize the fault in us. Our education system, our political inclination, our blind faith in our religion, while making sure that we keep on increasing the population frantically. This ends nowhere, but more pain and more outrage, increasing every single time such an incident happens.

From 1947 to now, we are still a slave to our age-old beliefs that doesn’t let us see that we can be more than aimless followers and backers of our stupid religions, caste, gender, sect or country.”

Akarsh clearly overwhelmed tried to sleep, losing all hope, hoping this was all a dream and wishing he could wake up to a better and hopeful Earth.

The voice called him, he felt a sudden optimism in the voice. He called out to it, “Go away! There is no coming back from this. There is no hope.”

“Hope is you!”, the voice said and transpired through the air.

Akarsh, after scratching his head for some time, realized what the voice meant. The hope are the people who call things out as they see them. The people who fight for injustice, who respect women, the people who get equally disgusted with such news. We need more of them. We need them in this fight, against the ones with no moral values.

Lets Fight!

 

 

 

Dreams Matter – 2

Click Here to read the prequel.

 

Saloni was on a trip with her parents and their friends in Chicago, USA. The weather was a perfect 21°C to roam around the streets. The place attracted a lot of crowd at this time of the year. She observed the crowd. It was a great diverse mixture. Everyone could be seen happily enjoying in their respective groups. The smiles making the environment even more pleasant. But the curious Saloni found something odd about the group dynamics. She observed that females were playing with different different toddlers in the garden. But she couldn’t spot any male playing with any other toddler but their own. The different ethnic group were grouped together, their were hardly any exception to it. The adults were not even glancing towards differentially racial groups, but their children hardly cared about that. The toddlers would look at each other, reached out their hands to touch each other from the distance. Their eyes seems tp say: ‘Come play with me, I am bored playing with my parents alone’. Although the adults would politely acknowledge each other in certain situations, but there was no warmth expressed.
 
Saloni then observed her parents also moving towards what seemed to be an Indian group. She wanted to play with everyone, as she used to play in her home. To run for one ball, or to catch one person by chaining their hands together. She asked her mom, ‘Can I play with that guy over there?’ . Her mum politely said, ‘Lets play with those Indian people there. We don’t know these people.’
‘But we don’t know those Indian people as well.’, replied Saloni.
Her mum thought about it a moment and then gave her hand to his father.
She didn’t like that nobody addressed her query. She thought that Akarsh would maybe understand her. She asked for his father’s cell to call Akarsh.
She knew her neighbour Akarsh was a curious soul and might help her out.
She narrated the whole incident to Akarsh. Akarsh had never experienced such a scenario.
He thought for a bit and he knew from his past experience that he needed to go to sleep. As soon as he dozed off, the voice called out to him.
“What is it this time?”, the voice asked.
“Why is there a differential treatment given to people of different complexion.”, Akarsh asked.
“We didn’t design it this way. Different complexion was supposed to provide diversity to the earth, as opposed to the diversity we seek in the name of religion, caste and creed nowadays.”
“Then why only so few complexion, why couldn’t we have  more so that nobody can judge any other color.”
“Lets try that out.”, the shadow said playfully.
 
The next day Saloni came into the park. She saw people with plethora of colors on and around them. Everybody’s faces were so colorful, that you could hardly recognise what complexion they possessed before. She saw her parents confused as to which group to join now. Seeing her mom so confused, she reached out to her, hugged her and placed her palm over her mum’s cheeks. Her mother’s face started taking a purplish color, as her confusion started reducing. Smile returned to both’s faces: the mother understanding what had transpired, Saloni observing that she had so many people to play with. The colors added what the complexion couldn’t in years.
 
At a distance, a smiling shadow saw the colorful people playing, appreciating the unbiased and colourful mind of the kids.

Welcoming Hope

Wish you all a very joyous new year. 🙂

welcominghope

 

The thunderous blast from the past, engulfing me,
Pulling me towards their shore a little more.
Hands that were held tight, going a bit loose,
And the hopes dimming, tying a noose.
The moment that shone was the sign that I craved for,
Waking up to an experience, was what my way were paved for.
Now the lights are turned on, where the bliss is
And culminating it, is my key.
I reach out to the light with all my might,
Diving to the unbeknownst realms,
Into the abyss.

Dreams Matter

Akarsh was walking on the road with his mother in the warm afternoon. The sun was spewing the UV rays like sprinklers spraying water everywhere, making sure everything in vicinity gets some radiation.

Its a pretty normal noon, dogs are trying to find a comfortable place to sleep in, some people trying to catch a bus for their offices, playschool students seemingly happy to get back to their parents, the pride of parenthood showing up on parents faces. The street kids running half naked towards the nearby lake. The shopkeepers cleaning up and loitering on the streets. The cars going at 40kmph on the narrow roads creating ruckus at an ear-deafening level. Akarsh makes a mental note of everything as he reaches home.

While going to bed, he asked his mom, “Mom, why do people throw garbage on the streets?”
His mother replied “Beta, they are just lazy people. You please go to sleep.”
“But they can keep a plastic bag with them na, if they are too lazy?”
“Its not that simple beta”
“But…”
“Okay tell me what superhero power you would want to teach them a lesson.”, she cut him off.
“I would become Flash and would go back in time and keep repeating the past till they don’t throw the trash in the bins”, Akarsh said giddily.

The mother smiled; half proud of her son’s passion and half on the ignorance of the idea of paradox of time-travel that her son was fathoming.

She listened to the mumbling of her child as he carried on the idea and eventually slept.

Akarsh woke up to a voice calling his name. The voice came from a long distance that he knew he couldn’t trace. The voice asked him “What is making you anxious?”

“It’s the people” said Akarsh in a muffled voice.
“Hahaha..you have to be a little more specific on that.”, said the voice grinning loudly.

“Why do people throw their garbage on the streets? Why don’t they understand its a moral duty to keep your area clean”

The voice culminated into a shadowy figure and came close to him.

“I am tired of dropping hints to them. Tell me if you have any good idea.”

Akarsh whispered something into the shadow ears.

Next day, Akarsh walked around with grinny face. Everywhere he saw, it was so clean. The half naked children were still running to the dirty pond. The dogs still couldn’t find a warm place to sleep. The ear deafening cars were still a big trouble. He thought to himself, atleast one thing got cured. We will work for other problems some other day.

“Look mom, its so clean today. No garbage, everything either in the dustbins or in the ‘houses’.”, he giggled.

“How did this happen?”, mom thought loud enough in order to make Akarsh answer.

“I asked the ‘voice’ to turn the garbages into 10 rupees note for few minutes”

They continue walking the road as Akarsh is singing happily and his mom scratching her head.

Image Courtesy: Google Images

 

Now Click Here for the next part.

A brand named India!

Its year 2030…and I just came across an e-article about Uttarakhand floods. Man! That was a real disaster. While researching around this article, I also realized that 2012-13 was a year filled with utter humiliation for Indian chauvinists. Newspapers crowded with news that could easily force your smiling curves inverted.
The dilapidating state of country was perspicuous in economic, social and humanitarian sense. My memory is fading and so it’s hard to remember how the shaking boat survived the drowning, but one thing’s I can bet on, we sure were close to reaching a deadlock where the scenario could have been described by even bad and ominous adjectives.
The political setup of India, both centre and state administration was seeing the lowest that it can be. I don’t know how we got through that horrendous phase where hopelessness, lawlessness and scrutiny of sincerity prevailed. Inconsiderate governance, apathetic politicians, slackly decisions, foraying into personal lives were just some gifts presented to citizens by our so-called ‘public servants’. The prevailing conditions were far cry from the promises of the incumbents.
The highlights of those times included falling rupee, the division of telangana, the national surveillance program, uncountable mid-day meal laxities, the disastrous National Food Bill among another national issues. In the local section the violence related with reservations, the suspension of SDM Durga Shakti Nagpal made the news constantly. Do you know, in UP, around 50 IAS officers are transferred every month. And this trend has been followed up for more than a decade now.
                Anyways these weren’t the only issues of let-down…these were following a long list of scams namely Coalgate, Commonwealth games, 2G auction, Chopper gate scams were just some major ones.
                Those were the times when utter helplessness and frustration marked over any discussions regarding India’s scenario. Patriotism was seriously taking lot of hits. I had seen the real patriotic souls on the verge of giving up on the country. The spark that enthused them was slowly fading followed by more impuissance. The times were so dark that leaving India looked eminent and substantial to a quality living. But as you can observe things are better now. The frustrated sense is no more acting now. The inevitable phase that no democracy has ever dodged was handled efficiently by our now developed India (of 2030). A new India rose from near ashes, with the efforts from bureaucrats, politicians and common man. Perhaps finding the right tuning to work with each other was the key.