da incorrigible SAZEAL - poetry

That one night!

noreply@blogspirit.com (achilles sans his weak heels) — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 07:20:00 +0900

I woke up in the middle of night,
With your soft supple caress..
A hundred emotions crept up all right,
The emotions I couldn’t assess.

I woke up in that darkness of night,
And still saw your eyes glow..
Like a distant light on a cold night,
So much warmth in my body did flow.

I woke up in the silence of night,
My name on your honey lips..
A hundred bells tingled in the absence of light,
A score of flutes played by nimble fingertips.

And then I woke up in the middle of the night,
With the knowledge of your presence..
No beautiful eyes did I sight,
No caress, no sound of benevolence.

My God!! It was a werewolf in my bedroom!
Aaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu……… :P

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My paradise is lost !!

noreply@blogspirit.com (achilles sans his weak heels) — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 23:00:00 +0900

Guess what... i dug out some of my most favourite poems while organizing my Lappie...

Way back on Jan 26, 2001, when there was a major earthquake in Gujrat, followed by devastation of an unforseen scale... i was preparing for my 12th boards, which was like 1 month later... and i could not study... that is when i wrote it (29TH Jan 2001)... its crux not only represents earthquake, but any calamity that makes us understand that we are mere mortals and we must not be too vain to value life...

It goes like this...

The terse was ripe, people ebullient and gay,
Saluting the tricolour on the republic day.
Buildings stood high, as high as visions could reach,
Our achievements and prosperity these used to preach,
“This is where everything, my everything lies”
“This is heaven”, I said, ”this is my paradise.”

I started trembling, I shuddered and quavered,
Like a doodlebug deploying, explosions I heard,
I saw earth cracking right below me,
The walls giving away, the ceiling falling on me.
Then someone screamed, ”this is a bhookamp”
I was on the first floor and I made a jump.

I was safe in the open when the building came down,
I’d always thought it was the strongest one in town.
High rises collapsed, everything like a jumble
The beautiful locality turned into a rubble.
Someone said, “Doctor look at my son, why doesn’t he answer?”
I was helpless, I had no answer!

Tens of thousands died; lakhs amputated,
Friends crushed to death and families parted.
Decaying under concrete are near and dear ones.
No shelter, no security, only battered dreams of living ones.

God!! Do me a favour, give me an answer…
What had this two month old done, whom you so brutally butcher
My people are lost;
My paradise is lost.

I pray to you Ram, I pray to you Jesus,
I meditate on you Allah.
Do not impose such atrocities on anyone, anywhere…
‘Coz the dead are cremated, but the living hearts burn!!

FIGHTERS AND STRUGGLERS!

noreply@blogspirit.com (achilles sans his weak heels) — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 01:40:00 +0900

The world is big; It is also very small.
People around are magnanimous; They are also frivolous.
But I will not complain, I will not crib.
Because I know I will succeed in what I believe.
In what? How? When? I do not know.
I had heard, once:
“This is a tough world, pal, dog eat dog and all that
And I for one, am not gonna be left behind.”

But, I am out of this rat race
I don’t want to be a rat all my life.
I have much greater task in my life,
For which I am born!
I am nature’s answer to worlds needs,
I am God’s reply to his subjects’ needs.
‘Coz I am a fighter; I am a warrior!
And I know I will win.

This explains what I believe. And the incident that triggered my thinking in this direction is as interesting as the topic itself. It was the kind of discussion that usually takes place in written notes in the last benches of a class. Excerpts of which entail:

…Ashish: This is not the right place. Here, autocracy is ‘the’ word and freedom is obsolete. So, just forget it.

Sazeal: Agreed Sir, but if you believe in something and you are passionate about it, it is not impossible to achieve anything. We can change the system also. I don’t say it is going to be easy.

Ashish: Man, all this is just gyaan. Just a bunch of goody stuff; far away from reality.

Sazeal: Not just goodies. In fact it is very much practical. The only thing is that you have to fight. You should not give up, even if you fail. Optimism is the word for the game.

Ashish: philosophy of a fighter, huh? It is too far fetched. Not everybody can be a fighter. Look around the class, I see only strugglers.

Sazeal: Yes, in reality, all of us are strugglers. A fighter can only be recognized in his trying times. Tough times tell us a fighter from a struggler.

Ashish: Hmmm… I had read this somewhere, “A fighter fights and wins; and a struggler struggles and dies”. I do agree that one should never stop, whether he wins or loses. One should never compromise or compensate if he really believes in something…

Now, at this juncture, I was left thinking. Thinking who exactly is a fighter, a warrior, a soldier?

Who is a fighter? Who is a struggler?

Dictionary defines a fighter as
“A pugnacious, unyielding, or determined person.”
and a struggler as

“A person who struggles with difficulties or with effort.”

You have two roads at any point when you are to take a crucial step or decision: either you give up or you continue to believe in yourself and do what you believe.

In other words, you stay in the system, work within it, you crib and still you accept. You are a struggler. You stay in the system, work within it, understand it and work towards bringing about positive changes against all the odds. Then, you are a fighter.

Fighters always have, through the history, found it ‘difficult’ to achieve their targets because they pose a serious threat to the power and authority and the current system as a whole. But when you break all the bars, and prove you are right, you are a fighter.

There are a few great people in history who I very positively term as fighters. These personalities are Bhagat Singh, Swami Vivekananda, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Howard Hughes and Alexander the Great.

When do we fight? To what extent is fight justified? In what way should you fight?

At this juncture I must pose the most important question. Do we fight against a person? A group? Do we have to fight against someone?
No, I say. Fight need not be against someone… it could also be against a man-generated situation or a natural calamity or it could be against your own traits. Fight need not be to hurt your opponent or a villain, but to help him understand your view or even help him out of his ideologies. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I am not against fight. I always believe in fighting wherever there is injustice. The question is do you fight to change the situation or do yopu fight to punish?”

A fighter may be offensive or defensive, depending on the demand of the situation.

The basic philosophy of a fight is never to give up. That is never give up if you believe in something. Just go ahead and do it. Strugglers crib and try to struggle out of the situation. Escapists also struggle. This does not mean that I am comparing strugglers to escapists though latter is a subset of the former. But if we talk about strugglers, we usually talk about the mass that does try but not enough to succeed.

Fighters at some point of time are strugglers; but one thing is sure that, not strugglers are fighters.

There is something that always crops up when I talk on this particular subject. And it is very much coherent to the subject I am discussing here. That, the characters I describe as fighters show elements of eccentricity. Take, for instance, the example of Howard Hughes. I say, Eccentricity is important… because what people consider eccentric is actually the unusual and exceptional qualities of these personalities that normal(?) people cannot understand and that’s why they are not fighters… we must appreciate eccentricity and not shun it regarding it as ‘crazy’.
In fact all of us have some or the other eccentricity which is actually their potential to grow larger than life.

This reminds me of Swami Vivekananda’s words:
“Wake up! Be bold! Understand your duty and take the whole responsibility on your shoulders.”

GOALS
One must have a goal in life. And a large one, because our President Dr. A P J Abdul Kalaam said, “Small aim is a crime.” If it is something that we feel for, we must go ahead with all passion. And the fact is that you cannot reach the pinnacle without taking substantial risks in life. Congruently, we must consider the odds, weigh them and take decisions. And we must be ready for the repercussions.

I would like to end this article by the lyrics of a song by John Bon Jovi:
“This is for the ones who stood their ground,
For Tommy and Jeenah who never backed out.
Tomorrow’s getting harder, make no mistakes;
‘Coz luck aint even lucky, gotta make your own breaks.”

... and then there was light!

noreply@blogspirit.com (achilles sans his weak heels) — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 00:05:00 +0900

‘Twas such a beautiful day,
And I was right on my way,
Choosing the path that my heart prescribed,
Not reading the rules on the stones described
The journey seemed so beautiful, so gracious so fine,
Soon everything I ever wanted would be mine,
Only with happiness I’d dine,
There couldn’t come a day, when I’d have to whine.

Before the thought even crossed my head,
Rocky and thorny I found the road I tread,
The clouds did cover my head, cutting from me the sweet shine,
The train of my life did enter a tunnel, “the darkness” was all mine.
Tattered and shattered, I walked a mile,
But I decided not to lose my very last smile.
Life seemed to offer sorrows in a pile,
But the walk and the smile, I kept for a while.

And then there was a light…

It turned to such a beautiful day,
As I continued on my way,
Choosing the path my heart described,
By the same carefree heart but with care subscribed,
The journey became so fruitful, so obvious, so mine,
I know what I’ve been through is all that is mine,
Even with catasrophe, now, I could dine,
So there wouldn’t come a day, when I’d ever whine.

If the smile was not, what I had kept,
Had I stopped, complained and wept,
There would still be clouds and not the sweet shine,
The train would have stopped and “the darkness” would still have been mine,
Now all my life, mile by mile,
I’ll keep walking wearing my smile
Even if life offers me sorrows in a pile,
I’ll accept it for that while.

‘Coz then there will be light…