Did I hear that? May be not.
I was deafened by own thoughts.
Or lost in the melodious silence.

Did I feel it? May be not.
I was numbed by the coldness of a heart.
Or lost like the lone traveler in the desert.

Did I ever understand it? May be not.
I was cast aside by the consciousness.
Or lost in the deceptive acts of a conjurer.

Don’t mind my words, my attempts..
A poem that is beyond comprehension,
With what belief can I ever reason?

Stuck at a moment without a choice,
like an old unwound wall clock..
Tell me, what should I treasure,
the words, the imagery or the shock?

Almost thirty eight hours since I have been looking for that. It’s not there. I dismissed it yesterday, calling it a glitch. I had so much trust on my rationality, on my thinking, on my understanding… I had taken it for granted. I still can’t believe. And this time I can’t say “it doesn’t matter”. I can’t talk about the silly theories today, nor will mere words add value.

The fights were not a choice,
nor was the insane stubbornness.
The tears shed were not in the plan,
neither were the talks till the dawn.

Days I missed you were not a choice,
nor the waits for you to come back.
Patterns we scribbled were not a chance,
neither were the songs we hummed together.

Dreams I dreamed were not a choice,
nor was the eloquence of that silence.
Evenings by your side were not an illusion,
neither were the days that began with you.

This will not expend you… rather it will expand you… across the mountains of joys and oceans of tears… the undiscovered landscapes of faith and the realms beyond the mind… you will see so much. You will feel so much… each corner of your heart… so beautiful as it is… will be filled with a thousand of their words… their smiles… their wishes… their blessings.

You will wonder… is there any other way you can give… is there anything left for you to give. That is the way, my dear… that is the way a drop of rain becomes a river… that is the way a river becomes a ocean… giving itself up. Fullness… my dear… as they say, is pure insanity! Don’t bother… what do they know about craze… they will just relish and remain ever astounded at the rainbows you’ll paint…

Let your ride inspire a thousand more like you…

— Life’s boring without a bit of history, so here goes the set of P.S(es)…
P.S: Today I heard something I couldn’t bear. I broke in the afternoon, off went this mind, the intellect didn’t respond and this body ran away to the cave, again. Something made me feel there’s nothing to worry; you’re awesome, you’ll win the wars with just your glance (yeah, I know you’re proud of your muscular strength too, but this one’s a real war.. you’ve to choose the best weapon ).

P.P.S: I thought wrote this mindless blabber day before yesterday… I heard about the initiative then, one more trigger today, not sure what will come up tomorrow. So here’s to you wishing an amazing journey…

P.P.P.S: I couldn’t find another title, sorry for reusing that one

P.*S: Ah, you’re smiling; you already won that war? I know, I know, I’m always right!

Apart from marriages, our friends also noticed that the cultural activities in that village are recurring and fall into a generic pattern. For instance, almost every other village in West Bengal or Orissa celebrates Dussera grandly; or most places in the northern plains celebrate Ram Lila during the Ram Navami festival. These festivities do end up with a grand dinner!

They thought – in most celebrations, big or small, individual or group, folks rent utensils/tents and other infrastructure items. Not everybody has the capacity/availability to rent them (low-income level or remote location). Why don’t we create a pool of infrastructure? A one time investment/gift from our side. There’s this other clause – every time someone uses the common infrastructure pool, he will contribute in kind to the pool. For instance, if using the common pool will save me 1000 bucks, I will invest 200 bucks and add a tent into the pool. That takes care of wear and tear of items over the years. The other assumption is trust and good will among people; usually cash leads to tons of troubles, kind reduces that a bit. All that said, they told me this works!

I know most of you must be involved in such activities already. Thinking along these lines, is there a way our action or gesture could be sustainable? Is there a way that one time act can replenish itself in future? If we’re involved with an organization, do we ask how they sustain themselves? We have heard many times the story of giving a man fish v/s teaching him how to fish. Sustainability makes our dreams repeatable. Fund raising is one way, I think self-sufficiency always goes ten steps further. Replenishment supports to that end; everyone owns, everyone nurtures and everyone relishes the fruits. If I were to change one thing, I would ask for us to imbibe this thought culture of replenishment.

May be education can follow this norm as well. Can’t the students (of say a higher grade) help the students junior to them? A similar structure already exists for higher education (Teaching Assistants etc..); can we implement that in primary/secondary education? Many of our kids do have a dream to be a teacher, why make them wait for ten more years? What do you think? Would it work? There will be so much passion, learning and activity around (it seems like that in my mind at least), I’d love to try this out someday if I get a chance to be a teacher

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It was the NH 108. And they had waited for the landslide to clear off. Around 6PM, it appeared the JCB vehicles (ones used by BRO to remove the blockades on the road) were done with their job. The road will open. They decided to wait bit more, and see if heavy vehicles can pass through the patch of landslides, there were two of them in the half kilometre stretch. After 30 minutes, they kicked off the journey.

It was evening, around half-an-hour more for the Sun to set and was drizzling. They crossed the first landslide patch. There was a small bend, where the truck needed adjustment to move further; the Driver started manoeuvring. In that matter of two minutes where they were focusing on steering, two moderately sized rocks rolled from the top, landed two metre ahead of their vehicle, and rolled further down. Their pulses stopped!

A truck in mud, the mighty peak on the left and the turbulent Bhagirathi on the right. That would have been their last. It was slightly dark, and from the inside of the truck, the movement of rocks was not visible. They have to cross the patch. They decided, one of them would go on the mud, look out for rocks and signal the truck to move further. He went down, moved some further, there were only small stones falling from the top, irregularly. So he would wait a bit, signal the truck to come further, and then hear a stone, again signal the truck to stop.

This went on for ten-fifteen minutes. In the process, he had moved twenty-thirty metres ahead of the truck. Then he heard a slightly loud noise from the top, mixed with the noise of the Bhagirathi below. It was quite dark, he thought it was a big rock, but he couldn’t see where it was falling towards. He ran, just as his gut dictated. He reached the end of the patch.

The truck was on the other side, rocks in middle and he on the other side. He searched for the phone, he had left it in his red backpack on the truck as it was raining outside. He was in a fix. Should he go back to the truck or should he stay there? He sat on the grass for some time, went forward and returned hesitatingly; as if he had got the reason he was looking for. One, that was good enough. He decided to stay there.

He could see the truck taking a turn at the other side. And slowly it disappeared. Thank god, they were safe. Fortunately, there was another truck on his side of the patch; waiting to cross from the opposite. He went with that truck back in the opposite direction, to a small hotel. He dug up his wallet, there was the number of a friend on a piece of paper marked Glucose and a hundred bucks. He requested for a phone call, and told his friend the story, asked him to communicate the driver that he is safe. All was well.

Something was not feeling right. He left the hotel, and started walking around to find a place to sleep. He found a closed hotel at a distance, rang the bell and requested the keeper for a place to spend the night. They were very kind, and got him a temporary bedding.

He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t rationalize, there were so many “what ifs..”. The evening had brought him so close to the end. He couldn’t believe the chances, timing, the decisions. There was so much he was grateful for, he couldn’t solve the puzzle nor repay the debts; what could he speak, they were much beyond his little self. He recollected the days with his best mates, they used to often joke that he would live till forty, they would count the years and push him to do more. Fourteen more years, he thought and dozed off.

I don’t blame misery. Oh, the glimpses of awesomeness, you’re the culprit. You tricked me. I had made my terms with sorrow, had accepted them, and they couldn’t harm me more. We were friends, always together. But you crushed the equilibrium. You showed something else is there. You brought in duality. Why did you have to do that? Now, like a pendulum I sway between what was there, what is not, what could have been.

Oh Mind! Why do you behave like the man who has a diamond mine in his backyard, yet looks everywhere outside to find diamonds? They are part of you. Dive into the ocean within. Why do you search for them outside? Oh eyes, rest yourself, I don’t need you any further. What need do I have for you to see in darkness? Oh ears, I don’t need you either. The only voice there is silence. What pleasure can you get me? Stay away. Stay away.

There is no concept of time within, neither past, nor future. Only the moment. Just one point to concentrate…

First knock involved multitudes of people and impacted them widely. Being family, they knew us from young days. There was a high expectation set upon us, based on past actions and opinions. We had not set any framework of non-expectation or non-assumption. Things flowed amazingly well, until they got stuck in a problem. We pushed to solve; exactly the same way our best mates push us every time we fall down, they resisted. We couldn’t reach a consensus on the solution. Being physically absent added to this. Assumptions veiled the thoughts. It was a conscious decision to destroy, but the force applied from either side was not same. The force from other side came from an unexpected dimension. Too much complexity. Some were happy, most were hurt and we ended up shattered.

Their openness amazed us. Absolutely. We delayed a bit in this case, and have to learn this. We have to become more spontaneous. It’s awesome. Second, it seems both ends of a relationship cannot sway at the same time. If both are confused, things fall apart. It has to be balanced, one has to hold the other. Third, may be our physical presence would have made a difference. As humans, we take cues from behaviour which adds a ton to trust and nurtures a relationship. Fourth, it is not possible to make everyone happy at the same time. You have to choose the right side and stand by it to the end. We could have done better in this aspect.

In the second knock, the relationship was supposed to be ideal. Every thought and act was carefully chosen to respect freedom as much as possible. As far as we know, it was seen in a similar way from their side as well. They also cared a lot for it. We had spent a lot of time nurturing in the last half-year or so, day by day. Unlike the first, it was based on non-expectation and non-assumption. It was beautiful, simple, absolute freedom; until we made a mistake – violation of a principle. The only way to get out of that was to break away for a while. We did break away, with their consent; but we explained the break in a non-explicit way. The break was from entire world, family and other friends as well. We recovered from the mistake. But things were never the same after that. They said everything was fine, but we couldn’t feel that. We missed those old days. It seemed they were not alright, we had no clue what was bothering them, we couldn’t get a moment to clarify; every deduction was leading us to our mistake/break away. Although the relationship existed, it was not what it was supposed to be They had already become too close to become our priority zero. Their state implicitly impacted us. The feeling of knowing there is something unnatural, but inability to know/act rendered us crippled. We thought may be an explanation will make things good. So we planned a dinner, created couple of cartoons/poem that we will slip during dinner. The plan was to explain the mistake and get rid of that. Didn’t happen; bad timing I guess, an inertia to destroy, a blunder. Boom!

We are grateful to them. It was awesome. They inspired us. We should have talked about the mistake the first time around. May be we were idealistic, too much into perfection, or assumed they will understand. Implicit doesn’t work in relationships; however resonant the participants are, it will most likely fail. The only purpose of communication is to put your thought across, all else is noise. Simplicity is key. Even if we did a mistake this relationship was supposed to replenish, by design. It didn’t. We are not able to explain that at this time. Second, where ever you stand, however you think, all your actions will end up in either the “good” or the “bad” bucket. It is not up to you. It is the nature of mind to label things: like/dislike, good/bad etc.. The moment we label something as good or bad, we just took away its immortality, and shackled ourselves in a gold or an iron chain, my dear friend. It is unfair. They say, the wise figure out good/bad based on recipient and act. We don’t agree, it is unethical from where we stand. Third, may be we chose a wrong time. We should have let it go on that day, there was already too much disturbance in the environment. Regarding the trigger, may be our thought is completely wrong. Likely we assumed a ton. We will never know the truth.

Third one knocked us in the work front. We were already knee-deep in mud, hit by above two, struggling with small decisions involving logic and we got a fairly complex problem to solve. We should have asked for an exception and moved out of that. We didn’t. And boom, you’re reading the post by a failed engineer Announce downtime as soon as you get into one. Stay shut up until you completely recover. Lesson learned.

That’s one crazy month. It impacted three of the four roles that define our identity in this world: family, friends and work. We thought second relationship will hold us in case of the first hit, and work will not let us fall through in case of the second hit We fell into the sink along one straight line We had planned quite a bit for these three in last December, and now we have an opportunity to reevaluate and figure things out.

We have talked about creation earlier. Above incidents exposed the facets of preservation and destruction. In addition to creation; preservation and destruction also seem to bind. One of our assumptions was – it is the nature of the Mind to create things. We stopped material creation, other than what is required as duty. Duty, as one of our friend describes is “the least which must be done, that which is your nature, and nobody praises if you do that. E.g. brushing teeth every morning etc.” It was not enough, we are not free, mentally we created many more universes. Even when our creation was without the regular boundaries of the world, it bound us in preservation. It was destroyed, still we are bound.

In contrast to our assumption, creation, preservation and destruction are not be the default nature of mind. There are moments when mind remains still, devoid of them. Will the extinction of this triad make us free? It appears there is something else which triggers them. We have to figure that.

Tomorrow is a new day. It doesn’t bind us to an identity, we’re free from a preset framework to operate upon. We will live the day, this time! We have a new experiment as well