My Two Faces

by

I have two faces.
One over another.

Inner one, I do hide.
Outer you all do see,

The inner one is colorless.
The outer face is colorful,

“Go and say them Hi”
The inner face says.

“Wait, they may not reply”
The outer face warns.

“Write them, and say I care”
The inner face says.

“What if, they will scold you?”
The outer face warns.

“Go and embrace them”
The inner face says.

“They are not your blood”
The outer tells the inner.

“At least you can greet them” masks.gif
The inner face says.

“Why should you do?”
The outer face keeps mum.

“I do write poem.”
Inner face said.

“I too write fictions”
The outer face exclaimed.

Then Inner face shouts on outer –
“You- are cruel ,
Soulless and blunt.
You look good,
But you are bad
And I hate you”

My outer face says to inner-
“You may hate me
Forget not –
I kept you safe,
You are delicate,
Tell me –
Who understood you.
Better than Me”

They kept silent,
For a while.
After sometime,
They fought again –
Forever.

The Handbag

by

Her marriage is on 16th Dec. Her marriage invitation card along with a letter reminded me the day, which was her second day in the office.

To me, it was a normal working day, as I reached the door of first floor and I was about to enter. On the right side, I saw the new girl stepping down the stairs from the cafeteria. But to me it seemed that her steps were extra cautious.

My sub-conscience was not wrong. Just before, she was about to touch the floor from the stairs, she got unbalanced and was about to fall miserable. Without thinking anything, I moved forward and hold her hand. Before I can extend my left hand, she balanced herself . Before she could understand what happened, she promptly said… “Oh Sorry”.

I observed , her eyelid seemed wet. She might have cried few minutes before in cafeteria, I guessed.

While falling , she managed her dupatta but could not balance her handbag. The handbag kept rolling on the stairs towards ground floor. I guessed she did not fastened the zip of the handbag. The things in handbag scattered !

I offered her help. We gathered many used mobile recharge coupons (which she seemed never throw), a lipstick, a small diary, one small black polythene, petals of a dry rose which had turned out black, and a half torn letter, and some piece of paper torn in smallest pieces. There were broken bangle pieces ( Not sure, were they broken before ) and a little soft-toy attached key-chain.

At the time there were no one on the stairs to make her more embarrassed , but she was embarrassed. She must had got sprains on the ankle. Afterwards, neither I nor she said this falling episode to our colleagues ever.

She stayed with us for 7 months. The days she spent with our teams were really good. She changed the organization for better prospects. The industry is habituated to see such departures , but to two of her friends, it meant missing her contribution in the team.

I never knew much about her, unless few days before, she sent me a friend request in Orkut. I clicked to her personal profile. I was surprised to see her details. She had written: from the past relationship I learnt — “NEVER EVER trust Anybody”. I was a bit surprised to know this thing about her, but the sentence did elaborate the things she kept in her handbag.

I accepted her friend request and wrote a mail for her auspicious future.

She replied me back.

Aakash,
……….
Today I dont have words to reply your line
“I do wish, Bhanumati ka Pitara ( the handbag) will contain fresh roses now onwards”
…..
Apply for leave early and try to come along with Rakesh.
……
……
Regards,
C. Puja

Walk alone – Just alone

by

Udupi Beach
Its difficult to walk alone,
Its tiring to tread alone,
Paining the bones to climb alone.

And I learn to walk alone,
Weep now in the open,
Laugh aloud in the barren,
Draw the hut on the sand.

Because I heard them shouting,
Some giving a word of courage,
And few admiring my steps,
And the voice united announced –

“None of us can come along –
When you will depart alone.
Learn it, it will give less pain.
Walk alone – Just alone.”

Again…

by

History has a very peculiar tendency. It repeats. After reading this I could not resist to post it from Ashutosh’s blog, when his brother left him….

…………..
……………
जानता हुं, तु अब कभी नही उठेगा,
शायद मेरे लात मारने से भी नही,
शायद यही सोच,
अभी जब तेरी चिता को आग दी जा रही है,
मेरे आंसु, उस आग को बुझा ना दे,
मुझे तेरी आखिरी दर्शन से भी वंचित कर दिया गया है,
...

Happy birthday to you

by


Hi Dear,

You must be awaiting for me as today is your fourth birthday. You know na, since morning how busy I was ! Just now I wrote a looong post on your growth years. But as now the 23rd Nov. will end in half an hour, so I thought to publish nothing but the first few lines form the poem that I wrote in class 7.

नवीन लता, नवीन कोंपल,
बढ़ने की चाह मन में विकल,
ले अभिलाषा चाहती प्रकृति,
बढ़े सभ्यता, फुले संस्कृति,
होते जहाँ पर सभी समान,
छोटे – बड़े का हो ना भान,
चलते जीव, हँसते जन्तु,
मत्त झुलते शाखा तन्तु ।
……….
……….
Anyway here is a CAKE…. and 4 Candles… Chocos.. Songs.. Dance.. Baloooooooooons …and see every (n)one is standing around.. Now Happy Na.. Happy Birthday to you…. 🙂

It was a really nice day at Manipal 🙂 Rest you know very well.

Yours own,
With, lots of love…

Sipping a glass of juice

by

Today early afternoon, after lunch I walked to the juice shop. She, the beggar, was standing near to me asking for money.

Her age may be around 70 or more. Dirty linen and weird grey hairs, black skinny hands and dirty nails and a big round grey bag hanging behind her.

I tried to pay no attention to her as they do keep roaming in the busy market. She again asked for bheekh, and the shopkeeper in Kannada said something to her. The only word I could I understood was juice. I thought the shopkeeper is telling her to stay away from the juice shop. But she did not moved away but she was not looking towards me for coins.

Few coins do not matter for me as much that may matter for her. But still not to encourage the number of more beggars, I did not gave her.

I had ordered for a glass of mausambi juice.To pass off the time, I was looking at the juice making process inside the shop trying to avoid ( in fact I can’t ever ) her . I was the only customer at the shop at that time. Normally for one glass of juice, two mausambi are used. I saw him the juice-maker putting four mausambi’s in the juicer.

Juice was prepared within a minute – not one glass but two glasses ! One glass for me and other for the beggar lady. I picked up the glass and looked towards her. The beggar lady was counting coins in her dirty thin palms. Keeping many coins in her left hand, she was counting the coins in her right hand. I thought, she is ounting the coins to pay for her glass of juice. Coins of Rs. 1, Rs. 2 and Rs. 5 and occassional 50 Paise.

She still didn’t picked her glass by the time I had finished mine. She was re-counting the coins, as if she had done some mistake.

Seeing her counting ‘so many’ coins for a glass of juice, I could not keep myself with ‘no-no principle’ to beggars. Taking out my purse, I said to the shopkeeper that I will pay for her juice too, please don’t take her handful of coins.

The shopkeeper said “no” and in broken Hindi he continued ” She gives coins us as ‘change’ and we exchange her with the currency notes.” I understood the barter system as well understood the need of coins by the shopkeeper. As a thanking gesture, shopkeeper gave her glass of juice too.

I had a mixed feeling for not given her coins, as well for the thanks giving gesture of shopkeeper with a glass of juice. After paying I came out of the shop seeing her.

From a distance I saw, she was holding the big glass of juice with her two hands, and sipping the juice (the nectar) slowly.

Children’s Day Special

by

Today is Children’s day – the birthday of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India. The day is celebrated as children’s day because he used to love children’s very much and hence the children used to call him “Chacha” ( Uncle) . So he became popularly known as ” Chacha Nehru”. Though international children’s day is 20th Nov. but in India, as a mark of birthday of “Chacha Nehru” we do celebrate it on 14 Nov. each year. I would like to mention that “Chacha Nehru was born on 14th Nov. 1989 1889 and died on May 27, 1964.

The above picture may look like as another snap. But I wish to say something about it. Few months back, in front of my house, where lower middle class people stays, I saw the kids playing “Teacher – Student ” . Their parents may be working in some factories or as house maids but the kids are really smart. The time was around 10 am in morning. Like every weekend their play was again “teacher-student” that day too. I have seen that, coming back from school, they do their homeworks first !

No one forces them to do so with sticks. At the same time, no one is needed to keep them away from video-games or TV screens. They are playing and enjoying “teacher-student” game on weekends. At the left door one little girl is sketching and other kid is seeing them. The little girl knows the school saraswati vandana complete. “नमस्ते सरस्वती देवी….. ” She sings that while playing. On the right door, a girl is reading the lessons of some story book loudly and others are listening to her. The Teacher madam sometimes lovingly scolds the students too.

Now a days, one family is not there now, so the teacher madam is not there to lead the play. Though I couldn’t understand their Kannada, but I can understand the language of budding childhood, which show the infinite prospects in them. It was a visual treat to my eyes. Happy Children’s Day !!

For your eyes only – 7

by

Whenever I go to my small town, in everything I internally do comparison and contrast between the metro of Bangalooru and district town Kishanganj. Say, I do that for almost everything not for discussion but think a lot, what makes two places different.

On Puja occasions, we do see fair (mela) type scene, which meant a lot for us in childhood, but now a days from there not many things that we need to buy. In childhood, a small piggy-bank ‘gullak’ meant a lot, when purchased from the mela-vendor. On the edible side, still Puchkas and Jalebi’s I can’t resist to buy and now we do look for hygienic vendors. Pity, this time only 50 Puchka (Golgappas) I did gulped, because my brother-in-law did not give me company for long :p


Balooooooons 🙂 ( I still do buy some, just to hang on door 🙂


Churiyan (Bangles) – Oriental woman’s love…


Mina Bazaar – ( What a contrast to metro designer showrooms : no mannequins, neon lamps and brand names here and its the lifeline of Majority of Indian )


Wow so cheap ! Chat Rs. 5/- , Samosa 2/-


Mud pots and toys

A young man selling artificial flowers ( Now globally people can see his flowers 🙂 ) ( Look behind there is written on wall “Chhatra Sakti( Student Power) – What a contrast !!