Completely Magical

A splash of red
On the blue sky
Gray water beneath
Passing them by

Two souls meet, and
Set themselves free
Like two tiny waves
Blending in the sea

They stand there
In bold defiance
With no fear
Just content silence

The time then comes
For the trail to stop
The moon goes down
As the sun comes up

...

So many visions
In moments few
An incomplete dream
And yet.. so true


Some things are beautiful because they are incomplete..

Dichotomy

I know there's something
Wrong with the world
When I see
Weaklings hiding in the filth
While courage gets
Massacred on the streets

I know there's something
Wrong with the world
When I see
Lust slipping through unnoticed
While passion gets
Labeled as evil

I know there's something
Wrong with the world
When I see
Morality being condoned
While love gets
Suffocated into anonymity

Identity Management

I was once afraid of people saying, "Who does she think she is?" Now I have the courage to stand and say, "This is who I am."--Oprah Winfrey

You have one life- don't live it pretending to be someone who you are not. Stop trying to derive confidence based on what others think about you. Be yourself. That's the only way to really live- else you are are just living a lie.

Total Convergence

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

I had recently quoted these lines when some important things were in the midst of being decided. And I wanted to put them here, as a memory stamp which would depict the sleepless moments that accompanied the process and also the stark finality of the choice that was made..

So keeping up with the tradition, I started searching for a picture for it. Which is when I found this picture that I have posted here. Looking at it, I thought to myself- who's to say that the two roads are diverging out..? What the picture shows is a junction of two roads- and it can be read in another way too. It can also be interpreted as two roads coming together to meet each other into one. And suddenly, all finality evaporated and I felt a strange relief which soothed my raw nerves as I laughed out aloud- I will sleep well tonight.. :)

Every single moment in time is complete in itself- it is not only a moment which signifies an end to the time before it, but also a moment which is the gateway to the time which is to come after it.

As I now look at the picture- I am most certain of it. Two different roads have converged into a single one.. And this new road is going to pave the way for.. Umm.. Well :) Let me just say...

Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
~ Rick Blaine, Casablanca

I know wonderful things are in store for Rick and Louis... :)

Satyameva Jayate

The national motto of India- translated into English it means- "Truth Alone Triumphs". I read an article by Shashi Tharoor in The Times Of India today morning and he quoted this line and asked "Whose truth?" A billion people will have their own billion truths.

So whose truth will triumph? A famous scholar called Ibn Rushd, who lived in the 12th century, had proclaimed that "Truth never conflicts with truth". Considering that he acknowledged the existence of more than one truth- I guess the statement is quiet ironic...

Each one of us believes that "What I know is the truth". And almost each one of us believes that "My truth will triumph". And what happens when my truth is someone else's lie?

Maybe Ibn Rushd was right. It is not truths that conflict- it is beliefs which do.

Black and white are opposites...

I found this wondeful ambigram in the Sunday Midday while I was in final year engineering. It has been created by Punya Mishra- he's a very famous ambigramist and you will find more of his ambigrams here:

http://punya.educ.msu.edu/punyaweb/

In Punya's words, "... you can see this as being about opposites (good - evil; black - white) - the absence of one defining the other..."

It is so simple to categorize something. People are very quick to say something is good or bad- that they are happy or sad... But everyone would agree at the end of the day that life is not black and white- though we would sometimes want it to be like that so much just for the sake of more clarity. If I am happy I would automatically see the world as happy- and the same goes for the scenario when I am sad. But it would help to remember that my joy inadvertently means sorrow for someone, whether I like it or not... Andre Gide really knew what he was talking about when he said "The color of the truth is gray"

One more interesting thing about the above ambigram is that the first thing that people usually notice in it is the word Good- it is only after looking at it closely that they realize that it also has the word Evil. But once they have found out the evil in it- the next time they see the picture- they will always read the 'evil' first and will need to strain their eyes to see the 'good'.

That's how some people tend to look at life too. I know I have done that. Once faced with any sorrow- they become sceptical about the very existence of joy- forgetting that sorrow is merely absence of joy and it is them who can make sure that absence is no longer there. Happiness is a choice one makes. Period. And if you cannot make that choice for yourself- then no one else can do it for you. I have learnt this quite late in my life- but I have learnt it for good..

The next time you think something is black or white- think again- you might have seen the very same thing as being exactly opposite the last time you saw it. Gray is in people!