The moments!

It's morning...the dawn to be precise. The Sun  will be out any moment,out of its slumber to knock 'the dark' out.The dark!It's the dark,probably, which keeps or makes us feel 'the bright'...it keeps us abreast with ourselves...it gives us the hope, over and again...without tiring...without complaining!

The dark...the gone...the moments...which are no longer around...faces which took their our turn into their chosen light...some of them far enough to be seen, touched again! The faces which used to be the morning ...the evenings...nights; faces which were the only life,now have become pics...the moments...the dark which often comes to enlighten our nights...well-up our eyes...choke our threot and life off its block.

How effortlessly they slip out of our hands...walk away, sometimes without even letting us know...without even knocking...we open our eyes and they are gone.We, sometimes, see them creeping away...we just sit and see them slipping away...undecided, puzzled, numbed...we just see them walk away...before we shake ourselves off to stop or call them back...we wipe the salt off our eyes...they embrace the dark...they become the moments!

There is a cavern,seemingly, beyond our sight...a dark cavern where they live forever. Once in a while, they sneak out of it...fall into our eyes...block our throat...get into the heart where they once exited for real...run wild...bringing a smile on our face which once was for real with them! The moment we are alive and into them,they walk away,again...leaving us misty,choked,blocked!

Sometimes, they come and sit beside us...holding our hands the way they once used to do...ring like bells...like a melody..like a jingle...sometimes, they seem to come running towards us...into our arms...warm as ever!

The moments which once were the life, keeps the life alive...once in a while by knocking us back into the dark...the dark which once was as bright as the Sun now off my window!

The moments which never let us walk away the way they did...never let us ride away,the way they once did...the moments which are long gone...never let us let go!!!

Lets Celebrate Love!

It's not everywhere...it will not be...love!

Whoever started it all, the eternal quest is still on...on forever, probably.Quest for love...true love...nothing but love...love...love...only love!Well, it has gone into my head than heart...i would've been sleepless at 3 at past-midnight, otherwise!I'm not alone, nor you are...dreams spare no one...hope bequeaths none.

Dream and hope are the horses of this quest...they linger on...galloping across skies...across lands...beyond stars.They never tire...never complain. They just huddle themselves into some corners when the Sun is cruel on them...the day tries to scotch them false...the grey tries to paint them dark and gloomy! They peter out,momentarily, when the-life-the real peels the sheen off them to make them look ugly...they are queued through the big Q...and when they are thrown open to the all blah-blah things 'the-real'!They seem to loose the breath, and cower under them all.

Not really. They have been through all, for ages. Romeo  shines all night somewhere there...in that corner of the sky digging the canal...sweating down his spine into longing parched lips...scorched    eyes...dreamful...hopeful because he knows Juliet waits somewhere else all night...since ages...without failing, without tiring! Heer can be heard singing wild into the woods...into the fields...down the streets...up the river...she knows Raanjha can come anytime panting through time...fluting down the Jhelum...singing over the winds!None can take Laila so away as Kaiz can't find her...not even the blinding storm...the endless desert...or the ceaseless heat!There are thousands, millions...those who shine up there lighting up million hearts down...twinkling up and down the innumerable eyes which sleep not a wink peeping out of their windows glued to their quest...quest for love...true love!

Someone waits for each of us, somewhere...yes for EACH of us...for you...for me!How wonderful!I'm alive again...there's someone who waits for me!Someone with long glistening hair...deep, dark and blue eyes...tall with right weight on right places...my princess with the sweetest smile..fairest of them all...waits for me! Dream and hope...come and lets set out to pain her into waiting no more. But, where does she be? At the top of Empire State building tower...we must rush, it may be the time to close for it. Or, should we rush to the nearest Railway Station...to the Airport!Oh...she may be waiting far there across the London Bridge.Or else, should i close on in some marriage party, i afraid she probably is being tied to the wrong man!Oh my God...it's 4:30, and the Sun be around in a very short while...i must rush before the bloody day chase the dream and the hope away to far down the aisle.

Ah!I don't care.Nor should you.But, sometimes i wonder why we have only a few Heers, Juliets and Lailas!Why do we all fold up and seem to push  Simran so she doesn't miss the train...is it because, either we don't have a Simran in our life or our Simran is not ready to sprint up to us? Why do we shrink in our skins wishing that time takes a dip for a while to let Annie reach the Empire State tower before Sam and Johnas leave...because our Annie doesn't know the E S address or doesn't care much coming! Why Devdas is, never, short of hearts crying in chorus with his... because, many of us have seen our 'somebody-like' Paro wooed away or it makes us all too 'same'...Paroless?

All blah blah about true love...with all sort of stories of all sort of betrayal, etc...we never tire of dreaming...hoping!

Let the wiser be whine with their caution...whether we get it or not...lets keep dreaming and hoping...lets celebrate love...true love.

Good morning and good night!

Aah Friendship!

Ah...what a word...friendship!
Yeah, i agree one should not dry one's laundry in the public...especially when it has semblance of your 'loose character' spread all over it!But, i'm tempted as they say everything has a colour...and every colour has a scheme, quintessentially unique! I wonder,though, if 'my' colour would offer any solace to the colourist!

Whatever. Friendship!!

Very tricky word. It has puzzled me incessantly...mercilessly...and for so long! Friends...they are plenty...more than the mushrooming mushroom! Omnipresent...omninascent...omniimpotent! There's a saying in wise circles that if you can not be anything, you can,at least, be a friend. Factually, you don't have to do anything to be a friend...my God...what a job, if we can call it a job!More, they are the busiest!I havn't come across somebody who is not a 'friend', yet!! You may, here or somewhere there, come across a jobless...a hopeless(hmmm)...a fatherless(like me)...a motherless...i mean all sort of 'lesses', but, i throw John Donne hat here, even if you find a 'friendless' creature and in the meantime you bring him(with 'her' it's an impossibility) to me, he will be a friend to someone!

And hats off to the God of all things friend...Facebook, which has more than 700 mn friends on its wheels..ah rolling wheels!Rolling wheels gather all moss!Have an email id...open an account...paste a picture not necessarily yours( every gob has a chance to  musketeer around as a Brad Pitt cousin...and a pensioner can pose like a sophomore...great na!) and be the game!Some of the 'wheels' have a few thousand mosses...these mosses, though, remain spoked on a distant planet...you can be their friend but you cannot have them around when you need a Disprin or a Munna Bhai jhuppi or ....you add your thing and repent yourself!

Friendship...it's a magic word...a panacea!Where there is a need, there is a friend indeed! You want to start a relationship,'can we be friend?'...you want to dump somebody,'can we be friends again?'...you got a better option,'it was nice to be your friend'...you want to keep somebody on the loose forever,' i don't know much, but we are friends'...talk to somebody all night all blah blah things only to discover,'we are friends'...you are with your 'friend' and another 'friend'(what on earth he is doing here, sort of!),'ah..meet my friend.....'!!!!Deja vu?

Friendship is immortal...irrelevantly revocable!Never have a guilt feeling...if you have, then you are not playing by the manual.If you wish to use the great source potential friendship offers, you ought to be at your mind's best...and,kindly leave your heart off the sleeve! If,it happens very rarely, your friend discovers that he/she is being used then dip your guilt or game in your tears...put it on your friend's head for the sake of friendship...shout your 'then-n-there invented helplessness' sobbingly and walk away in a jiffy...you are safe. Let the 'friend' lick and shine his/her ass!!!!A few tears and a few minutes' sob-snare can bring any friend, any time back to the tarmac!Because a true friend is one who believes in the ass, not in the kick!

Ever missed 'maa ke haath ka khana' all those tifin years!Or, ever missed that post-school cycle race while still in school!Ever loved that 'from-the-top-of-your-village-home-sunrise' more than now???

Then, have we ever stooped down to the well of our tears to know why 'Dil Chahata Ha' chokes our throat every time we dare dwell among those three friends! Why 'Zindagi Naa Milegi Dobara' is flying so high on our pockets or on our hearts...not because of Zindagi, but because of the friendship! Ever dare know, whether your heart cries on those 'friendship moments' or it cries for the lack of some of them in your life!

How wistfully we crave for our share of friendship...true friendship!!!!

Ahh...friendship...what a word...what a feeling.
Don't drag me to the mushy-mushy.

Well,again...it's not easy to be a friend...a true friend.Somebody who has an ass of iron and head of steel...ego of a dog and esteem befitting a 'she-dog'...eyes blinder than an owl on a day-out and ears more deaf than a snake...can be one the one.Tongue of a squirrel would complete the mould!Ah..friend...friendship!

PS: For any similarity of instance or instances, blame yourself.
      If, any animal lover finds the comparison flawed, blame it on Discovery because i seldom watch it.
      If, you smell any insult to any animal in this article, blame it on me.
      Pun, if anywhere, is only intended.
      If no pun...what a waste of a night!!!

Just a few words for my father!

A dreaming tall man of stout built, he was my hero!
When i was born and started having the feel of his persona much later, he was already a hero...a village hero for sure...a regional 'feel my presence',  presumably!He started as the first child in the family of three under the strict fatherly shadow of his parent-less father who saved no sweat in his body to avail all he could and the time then had to offer.He grew up a bright young man with a long trail of anecdotes behind him, many of them have become village, and relative, folklore with all the creative interventions of the interested parties. Having topped his school, his marks a school record which is in my name now, he went to a 'not so elite' college in the nearest city and returned home a graduate with a govt. job, an honor and deserved tribute to my grand-parents'(there were three behind him) sweat! He remained a cynosure of many a lives.A dreaming tall man of stout built, a graduate, in 70's that too in a remote village, with a govt. job and husband of a very beautiful lady, my mother!
One day, he came from the office and sat beside me. I was bed ridden from fever for few days.I knew he had come,but pretended sleeping.He put his hand on my forehead which was burning as he whispered to my mother.His hand on my forehead, finger-combing my hair, he kept sitting beside me for a long time...said nothing , asked nothing. I felt a drop fell on my cheek, he left!

Before that and after that, we shared only three feelings...two from my side, awe and pride...one from him, care.I don't remember talking to him eye to eye, sharing charpai(cot) with him...yes, we did eat together many a times, but 'together' may not be the right word for that.

He was not a man on a mission, but he took delight helping others. A pleasant  and sociable man with good sense of humour, he spared none. As an ambitious village folk who had seen city life and aspirations, he bought a piece of land where he would grow vegetable, much to the astonishment of the villagers, to add a source of income to his salary so that he could avail us all, almost, which was available, and he did.No extraordinary feat,but an extraordinary life for us by then, and probably now, village standard...a pukka house with concrete roof(lantar), TV(Texla with wooden shutters), a big Radio[bigger than the TV even which always had a 'Sugam Sangeet' programme in the morning around Papa's office time; i still wonder why that was called 'Sugam(easy Sangeet(music) Karyakarm(programme)] and a Scooter(lambrata).

There are many things which come randomly to knock my heart into the streets of my village where,once, he dreamt, toiled and lived...more for for us than him...where he died to live forever.There is that drop on my cheek which refuses to flow away.This article is not a tribute to him...nor an attempt to portray him as the greatest father ever,but to say that i always loved him, was always in awe of him, was proud of him...i'm still like many others...i still love him,even more knowing that he cared for me and he's around!

Whether people remember me as my father's son or remember him as my father, i wish his name remains with me as he lives in me.A dreaming, caring, toiling,smiling and living young man.Pradeepds(PradeepDalelSingh).

An Ode to Dear Life!

Ah!The dear life!

I've had the most peculiar, like any other soul at the receiving end may believe, relationship with you life...dear life.And, have always wished to be remembered as a good student of it, if not good at it!Wishing not to be clubbed with Peter Pans, I've seen myself as a child with his bag full of books on his back, standing bewildered amidst a bustling crowd. Faces in the crowd change, the child remains there.

I'm aware, I'm not the first or , in all probability, the last human to be taken aback by the way life walks, talks and stalks!It has a style, impeccable.It has, ask me, that oomph factor which can send any heart to sand with no qualms.The way it walks has sent many a souls bulldozed, no whimper, no whisper!It has, the more wise say, a way...well-defined which,though, can be refined by the few, rather the the few!

Don't take me wrong, my dear...dear life.I've been in awe of you, perennially!And, have accepted your offerings, though not very many, with open heart.I was told, i confess,you've your own way.Like a dutiful guide, you've tried without failing to teach me that way whenever, it was often, i meandered down my own liking...to the path i liked!

The world beyond the window seeemed more enchanting than in the room you offered,that's it!The monotonicity kept my thoughts propelling out of the window...into the woods...in the sky...with the stars...onto the moon!Never knowing, you tethered me...to the pole!You never blocked the window, nor ever loosened the rope.Like many of your other things,don't  know why, but the more wise say, you've a way!

How cleverly you allowed me to stray away for the lessons you've for everybody to learn; though the methods, now i know , are different.

I know, like any other disciple of yours, you love me.Just, this affair being stoically sadistic.I, probably, am born color blind to appreciate the richness of your prism.Either you are too fast or too slow, we end up looking at our back, and with that conjured-up, i hope untrue, images of each other.

The window beckons me, again.I wish, i could walk with you, your way!But, the early lessons, which i probably took wrong, have left me scared, bewildered, and lost...allow me! See you soon, in your class someday...i know you never let your disciple go!