If you can?

Let me run; let me go

Break the shackles

Lose the shape

Let me run; let me go

I wanna fall

I wanna feel the fall

I wanna learn to rise

And fall all over again

Don’t teach me

Coz I don’t wanna learn

At least not from your mistakes

Let me commit my own

Let me run; let me go

Out of the mould

Out of the so-called box

Let me run; let me flow

There’s hidden hypocrisy

In teaching and training

You get to do stuff

That I’m not allowed to

Let me bleed

Let me cry

I’ll value the smile and appreciate the stars

When I nurse my wounds and brave the scars

Let me run; let me flow

Away from inhibitions

Conditions and limitations

Let me run; let me glow

I believe I can win the world

Don’t teach me to be practical

I believe I can soar high

Stretch my imagination and reach the sky

Let me sing; let me dance

No more mind games

Break the chains and cut the noose

Let me breathe; Let me fly

Just Another Day!

Oh Womaniya!

Why art thou expecting a man’s validation?

For what you have achieved

Is beyond man’s comprehension

Not that you had to, but you’ve demonstrated in all fields

Braving all odds and strife

Early 1900's needed a push

But today it ought to be a way of life

You’re equal in every way

There should be no NEED for a ‘Woman’s Day’

It should be a shame if

8^th March is NOT yet ‘Just Another Day’!

Who am I? What am I?

Good or bad
Happy or sad


Dark or bright
Heavy or light

Right or wrong
Verbose or song

Noise or silence
Compassion or violence

Harsh or kind
Is it me or my mind?

If mind is but an alibi
Then, Who am I? What am I?

Distraction – The Enemy Within

Days go by and nights get restless

Tossing around as dreams get edgy

Relentless pursuit of happiness

Amidst comparison, excuses and a vision sketchy

In what we call a society

We are but a social animal

Lurching and reacting with instinctive notoriety

Emotional dearth making us a quasi-cannibal

Despite the gifted intelligence

We are mere mortals

What outlives us is intangible & without accurate evidence

Yet we fight for the tangible and kill for alleged morals

 

To each his own

Not just one's choice, beliefs and perception

But also the goal and milestone(s)

And the mandatory loaded distraction

Once dwindled from our Focus

Each distraction multiplies into chaos

Ripple effects eventually provoke us

To find a way out of our pathos

Least realizing the magic within

Using others’ yardstick, we seek pleasure

If only we stayed calm and practiced discipline

Could we see the impact of our flawed measure

Success and happiness although unrelated

Mocks away at our intellect

Attempting to satiate an ego ever inflated

In meandering ways far from perfect

Life is but a countdown

In the cosmic vibration

Legacy has trickled down

Diluted by interpretation

Every cell in our body speaks

If only we could listen

Following some ancestral techniques

Our Aura too can glisten

WORDS and 'Con'Text

There are numerous quotes and phrases that highlight the power of words.
Words begin and end wars. They create and destroy families. They break hearts and they have the power to heal.
Words are apparently so strong; it can either make or break someone’s life.

Is it really so? Well, technically not. It’s the emotions behind these words that does all of this.
Sometimes old texts and scriptures spark controversies and riots.
So whose emotions does it really depend on? The writer’s or the reader’s?
If a said extract is used in a speech, does it depend on the orator’s or the audience’s emotions?
Or does it depend on interpretation and grasp of language and grammar?
The contexts for such occurrences / speeches are usually set, in someone’s conscience.

My theory is it depends on the individual’s frame of mind and the context in which these ‘words’ are thrown or consumed.

Now, the word ‘context’ in itself is quite intriguing, you’ll see why.

On one hand, we have powerful motivational speakers who’ve made a career out of talking or using these ‘words’ to their advantage, who’ve inspired greater success stories. We’ve also seen people jump to conclusions and take drastic steps including committing suicide based on some words.
What really happens is that we the audience go in there with an expectation and either come out satisfied (read inspired) or feeling cheated (read dejected).
Yet again that entirely depends on the individual’s frame of mind.

On the other, there was this spiritual leader who was preaching how to ignore what the world says and thinks of us and urged each of us to find ourselves, not being influenced by others’ words and actions. He recommended that we focus on just being us. And yet there we were, still willing to be influenced by his words. Ironical – eh?

Words are mere reflections of our emotions and thoughts. We kind of choose what we want to hear or sometimes what we don’t want to hear triggering powerful emotions such as anger, distress and tears. That my friend is what words or ‘text’ does. It cons us – giving us our perspective and context.

Communication as such is a complete package. It includes words, tonality, body language and eye contact. Works best if used with touch.
The more evolved communication technology gets, the less understood we are as all these are either split and/or missed in most communication channels these days.

Also explains why the trend of having a pet has gone up dramatically in the last decade. Almost the same time communication technology has evolved. Co-incidence? Probably.

The secret to a loving relationship with a pet is that pets don’t use words. We believe that we understand each other. It works at some level because it uses the fundamentals of communication as a complete package including touch.

Next time you hear or read something regardless of the media, don’t let the text con you.

Let better sense and optimism prevail!

There’s something about the basics and fundamentals with me. I seem to see things threadbare.

The keyword being “seem” to see.

It started with analyzing an issue, a difficult individual or personality driven corporate battles. This habit spilled over into life itself. It’s almost like I see everything in 1’s and 0’s like Neo sees it in the last scene of Matrix (First part).

That movie was indeed prophetic. Today we are living in the Matrix. Everything around us is as fake as it can get. We are slaves to a system that pushes us into paying up. Taxes or EMIs. One way or the other.

We keep cribbing but struggle to stay within the system and in fact climb the ladder.

We’ve distorted the very meaning or definition of Happiness.

We are running around or driving each other crazy in this fast urbanized/westernized world.

We aim to have a lavish house without having the time to dwell in them.

We aim to have a lavish car without enjoying the drive in itself.

We aim and keep slogging for a mirage called “Happy Day”.  Even if it were to come, it wouldn’t last more than a ‘day’. The very next day, we would be back in the same rut.

We don’t have ‘Time’ for our people. However, we claim to be slogging FOR them.

We are all fooling ourselves beyond limits. Why do we work beyond office hours? Why do we travel crazy for hours in traffic? We are so zonked on weekends that we don’t want to get out of the house. What was the bloody point? Or What IS the bloody point?

We work hard for a promotion. Once promoted and with a meagre increase in salary, we are worried about tax saving. With that comes the most lucrative option of buying a house on EMIs. Rest of our life is ‘invested’ in servicing one EMI after the other.

Mind you – At the end of it, happiness is still elusive.

However, we’ve experienced Happiness. During our younger days.

The wealth we had was TIME and NOT money. That was immaterial. Reality never changes. Somehow, we have this weird belief that to be happier we need more money and then sacrifice the basic ingredient.

I’m all set to reclaim TIME.

Whether happiness still remains elusive or will my theory hold true, is yet to be seen / experienced.

Let better sense and optimism prevail! J

'Bang'istan OR 'Ban'istan

The age of producing visionaries and revolutionaries is passé. It’s the age of “reactionaries”.

There is a sudden outburst of reaction and they defy Newton’s laws as well.

For there is never an equal and opposite reaction. Reactions are always far more superficial and exaggerated.

It is sad when decisions are taken or changed on the basis of such reactions.

I’m hinting at the recent endeavor to change our ‘Bang’istan into ‘Ban’istan.

On one hand, our nation is grappling with a ‘men’tality that encourages rape and objectifies women.

On the other hand, we collectively howl at porn being banned.

This is where the real issue is left behind and superficially being dealt with by our very own reactionaries.

I’m not saying that porn is the only cause or even one of the causes of rape. The point is objectification of women. Let’s try and find out one valid reason why pornography exists.

Let alone the decision of some authority “allowing” us to view it or show it.

Here, I refer to pornography for the heck of it and not artistic expressions of erotica.

The issue is NOT that of freedom of expression or freedom to watch what we want in our privacy.

The issue is WHY watch it at someone else’s cost? 

Porn  gaining an “industry” status should be a shame.

Today the supply of porn exists and is growing at astronomical pace on the behest of an alleged demand. So why not kill the demand? What's wrong with it? I don't support the concept of 'ban' in general. But for this issue, why NOT?

This demand has got into scary proportions of voyeurism that makes us think twice in changing rooms, wash rooms, in hotel rooms. In the pretext of catering to the sadist invisible demand, there are possibilities of hidden cameras and each one of us being a potential porn star on one of these sleazy websites.

The issue is not about hypocrisy. It’s not about a nation that gave ‘kama-sutra’ doing something dramatically ironic.

Yet again, I ask for one valid reason WHY "Porn" should even exist. Let alone the freedom around it.