The Girl in White Robes

Hari had just finished his lunch when it happened. He was going back to his room two stories above. Someone called him, but he could not pay attention to it. He was too involved with himself, there are a few things troubling him of late. "Many would call them silly", he thought, "but I alone know the true dimensions of the problems. I am the one experiencing them." He had barely reached the first floor landing when he heard a distinct thud behind him. He looked back casually. Behind him is a stunningly beautiful girl in white robes. He turned back to face her. He is sure that the girl is smiling at him.
Some parts of him started whispering...

"A female in a boys hostel!! Man, she is gorgeous! Hope she is not the girlfriend of some idiot here. Only if I knew how to handle girls!"
"But wait, I haven't heard anyone climbing stairs behind me."
"Does it matter? Talk to her dude, you don't get to see girls daily here. And, she is smiling at you! Take the chance, mate."
"She appeared out of nowhere, she must be a ghost!"
"No, its only your imagination. Now, turn back and go straight to your room. You need to finish off your assignment."
"Hey, you are already semi-committed. You love Sruthi and aren't you trying to win her love? You can't cheat on her."
"I am not yet committed. But still, I can't resist talking to this beautiful lady here."
Unknowingly, the last of these came out a bit loud and the girl seemed to hear it. She said, "Hi, did you just say, you want to talk to me?"
"Me, talk? Yeah. I am just wondering....", he is stuttering, " Hey, are you here to meet someone?"
"Of course, I am here to meet you."

Again, the noises inside his mind started...

"She is here to meet me! Am I dreaming or what?"
"One thing is for sure, she must be an angel."
He finally made up courage to ask this, "Are you an angel?, Surely, you are too beautiful for an earthly woman!"

The answer he is going to hear, he never knew that, will change his life forever. "Thank you for the compliment, but I am not any angel. Mr. Hari, I am the Death and am here to make an offer you can't refuse."

<Intro  Next>

Dialogue with the Death

Random thoughts lead to Fascinating ideas.
This series of posts depicts my ideas about life, death and everything in general. May be faulty or leaky at times, but the fantasy makes it interesting.

Start>

Viral Fever

Yeah, as the title suggests I am suffering from viral infection. The list of problems goes on like this -- high temperature, running nose, body pains, headache, cough, nausea etc. Really this is one of the painful days of my life. By pain, I do not mean the mental suffering, but physical bodily pain. WTF the doctor himself says that I have to suffer it for four more days and I will experience severe pain during this period.

However the real problem is not me suffering from fever, but with running nose. I can neither sleep nor sit because of it continuously releasing mucous. Only thing I can do is to stand in an awkward position that too for a while. But standing is not possible, thanks to body pains. What I am presently doing is to sit and walk to the washroom every five minutes or so. I have to because I do not have enough kerchiefs in my room. Walking to washroom frequently is also difficult, thanks again to body pains. While writing this blog, I have visited the washroom twice.

The doctor advised me to take complete rest for three days ( Agreed to give me a medical certificate, as my Profs are stubborn in case of absence). Thankfully he did not think of admitting me into the health center. Now I can only pray God Almighty that I be rescued from this misery as soon as possible.

Who am I?

May be the title should be what am I? Whatever, does it really matter? All that matters is it is very hard to define myself. Ever tried to define yourselves? If you are successful, please do tell me.

Chance

I come again with another poem,
I wonder why I get similar themes,
Why do I write so much about them,
The days lost in deep memory seas.

This is about a man who had a chance
to live a life, different from present.
Not knowing this, he ruined the chance
grieving now for what it meant.

Thinking of the past he lives in hell,
never realizing it seldom changes things.
Even now he can make over well,
With a change in how he thinks.

We see what we want to see
and this man lived all his life
looking at things from his view,
forgetting that looks can be deceptive.

Everything seemed possible to him,
he had many goals to reach and
many more hardships to face,
but he had his girl by his side.

The world seemed beautiful to him,
The flowers and the birds,
The rivers and the clouds,
for he had his girl by his side.

All was well until one day,
An entirely different world
rose before him, taking away,
all memories he built till then.

He always read between lines
that words have different meanings,
but that's what made him lose
his girl, his goals and his life.

He had been imagining things.
It's not what pains him most but,
life he had is no longer a good old past,
only a badly depicted dream.

He could have had a different life,
had he realized it earlier.
Time and Tide wait for none
and life once spent never comes back.

Note: This poem is dedicated to a strange friend of mine, who inspired me to write this from events of his life.

To my friend: I know you are going to read this, but may not realize it is about you. Thanks a lot for making me write something again.

I Love You

I was walking in a garden,
so large that it is everywhere,
on every side, I could see it and nothing else.
It looked odd, the garden,
lovely red with roses all over there,
full of life, that they could feel my presence.
I could not stop but watch,
those beautiful roses, like cute little babies,
surely they are the masterwork of their creator, the God.

Then it happened, very strange,
It could be an illusion, I thought then,
but deep in my heart, I know it is very much real.
The roses, they started to arrange,
themselves in some peculiar fashion,
some shape, could be a circle, but very unclear.
Slowly, I began to realise that,
it’s not a circle, but a face, of someone,
I knew that face very clear, very close in fact.

As if someone’s pushing me,
or it might be the roses sucking me,
I fell into that face, into the roses, but I didn’t resist.
I never reached the ground,
It was so deep that I am still going in.
I can neither see nor feel it, but I don’t fear it.
‘Cause, I know it.
I know it was your face, and
it’s your love that’s taking me in and in.
And love can’t be feared,
It can only be accepted and lived.
I can only respond to that love by loving you.

I love you.

A Confession

It ended the way it began, reminding me,
that a lie can never be true nor it can be made into one;
I have no idea why I wanted that lie to be a reality,
Not even the least, but I simply hoped it could be done.

Unlike myself, a lie is never single,
one-by-one it grew into many, as if a chain reaction;
I tried making true each of the lies,
Succeeded in every lie, except the one.

I still hoped, one day, she would be mine,
then, all the lies told to them, could be excused;
That I could really make my love story true,
a story written by them and lived in my dreams.

There came a day, I could take it no more,
But everything had changed and I could not go back;
The lie was still a lie and she can never be mine,
I had to end the love story with another lie, fooling myself.

Now all that love story has ended,
I feel guilty of that one lie, the one I told them,
The one I tried making true and bitterly failed,
But I can never confess it to them, I fear I may lose them too.

My head is spinning...

My head is spinning, throughout the day,
I have been running, sourly at the bay.
I keep on running, don't know where, 
My heart lamenting, nobody to share.

Is it my fault, or is it destiny?
Why did it start, to end as a memory?
Why is it me, always the one to lose?
And why is it she, the lady I chose?

Dreams and walks, gone are those days,
Standing by the rocks, I saw her face.
Beautiful were her eyes, though filled with tears,
It wasn't a disguise, and I had my fears.

 She left me forever, "Forget me", she said
I can do that never, even if I am dead. 
Shattered are my dreams, just like a glass,
Unheard are my screams, lost in a mass.

 My head is spinning, throughout the day,
I have been running, sourly at the bay.
I keep on running, don't know where,
 My heart lamenting, nobody to share.

Santiago! Santiago!

Santiago! The boy's name is Santiago. He is born in a poor family in Mexico. His mother abandoned them when he was a small child. Later they migrated to America, illegally. He spent his childhood in poverty attending day school and doing night jobs. But he never gave up on something. Football. He is good at scoring goals. Indeed he is excellent. One day he is observed by a scout of a big football club from England. He was given a chance. He flew to England against his father's wishes. The scout got him a month to prove himself. Being a natural scorer, he got into the reserves team. Overcoming Asthma and news of his father's death, he made it to the first team and won his club glory.

Yes, I am talking about the movie Goal! Santiago!, what a beautiful name. The protagonist of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist is also called Santiago. Both of these start a similar journey to their Personal Legend. All through the movie, I felt like I was watching a screen version of The Alchemist. Or may be, I became so obsessed with the novel that I see it in everything. Whatever it is, I found out that I am becoming more and more interested in movies like this. Movies involving some competetion. I think a struggle would be a more appropriate word. Struggle as in war, as in game, as in achievement. When you watch such movies, what you will find is that Santiago is all prevailing. He is in everyone of us. It is just that we do not see him often. Rather, we do not want to see.

So, for the Santiago in me, what is his Personal Legend, I do not know. Not yet. I only know this much that you should not wait till you know but do what you can do best at the moment. I am in a path to take on the civil services examination and I will. What happens afterwards, God only knows. Yeah, Santi will know it then. Lead me Santi!

Santiago! Santiago!

Language of the Soul

What is I?
What is Soul?
What is Mind - Body Duality?
Why are Emotions attached to Heart when Reason is attached to Brain?

These are the questions I have been pondering over for a long time but I couldn't get a clear picture of these. May be I can't. I think the existence of answers to these questions negates their purpose. But I always believe(d) that there should be a theory that could explain all these. After reading quite a bit and after asking many people, I found out that this theory differs from person to person. And what more, each such theory is complete in itself. This could be the reason there are innumerable spiritual traditions in the world.

The Mind-Body Problem is one of the oldest and frequent philosophical issues ever debated. There are many explanations to what is mind and how it is associated with body. One such explanation is the duality of mind and body. It says that the physical processes related to thought go on in brain, but the mental processes related to it go on in mind. Everyone has both of them. The physical processes are not enough to explain the first person experiences as they differ in mental processes. The chemical reactions that go on in brains of two people while eating a chocolate are the same, but they experience it differently. It's like the chlorophyll experiment which says that though given all required chemicals, one cannot generate the photosynthesis process in a lab. There is something else attached to the process other than just chlorophyll, it is life. Similarly, for thoughts, we require a mind. Though a skeptic can argue against this, I am pretty convinced with this.

Reasoned enough about Mind and Brain, we can now associate reason and intellect with them.. But this does not end here. Where does the concept of heart come from? As I mentioned earlier, we associate emotions and feelings which defy reason and logic to heart. And sometimes we are asked to listen to heart instead of brain. Why is it so?