A Drink Unfinished: The Jaipur Odyssey

The story began when four friends, against odds decided - What the heck? Lets meet, it’s been too long. Others were consulted, persuaded, pleaded but I think fate was not on their side. So it was final, four of us at a place equidistant from each one's location; JAIPUR.

It was a three days journey to discover a city and rediscover each other. So everyone arrived on 1st of Dec. The first thing we did was- buy lots of beer. So it was a session of booze and music and our changed lives. Apparently it’s going to change much more.  Two of them confessed to have given in. They are getting married, in not so distant future. So we celebrated their sacrifices with more alcohol. Then we had a long walk to the nearest mall. There we ate, and we ate a lot. And then we saw something. It was a holy place, a BOSE Shop. But like most of the mall, it was closed for the day. We made a promise to ourselves to return and headed back to the hotel.

The next day we woke up a little late, well very late. Sightseeing was out of the question so we decided to go shopping instead. We saw a lot of stuff while we hunted for a watch for Ajit. I liked a watch but sadly my watch was still very much working properly. So I cursed my watch and dropped the idea. It was the temple we entered next. The Bose people gave us a demonstration of what can be called as the Big Bang. The sound was amazing. But we didn’t have that sort of money. So we settled for cool earphones. I and Ajit bought two pairs each. Our first Bose. We went to Planet M and I bought vcd of the must have ‘Rock On’.  GP bought clothes, lots of them; after all he had seen his favourite Fabindia and Tantra. We had Chinese for lunch. The pepsi we were having was a disaster. It seems that the dispenser had no water supply so what we drank was neat concentrate and mind you it doesn’t taste that good.

We bought more alcohol, and a little extra, at extra rate coz next two days were dry days –Elections. And then we watched Rock On. Cool movie. No one said it but we were missing our band. Then GP suggested that we should buy a small place and then equip it with everything (TV, music system, bar, guitars and drums) and we can stay there whenever we are together. We all thought it was a far flung fantasy but it was not a bad idea. It would have been like our transit camp. Then we dozed off, for the next morning we had to wake up early.

Our ride next morning was at our doors before we were even ready. It was a beautiful auto rickshaw with lavish interiors and even an LCD screen. So we hopped in and were ready to meet Jaipur, with folk songs in the rickshaw giving everything a rajasthani touch. Our first destination was the Amer Fort. I like forts and I loved this one too. But Ajit has seen a lot of them and that didn’t impress him much. It had a fortified wall going over a hill. It was looking like The Great Wall of India. The shutter bug came to life and GP run amok with his camera. We saw the weaponry, the buggies, the tunnel, the carvings and paintings. Some people climbed up the fort on elegantly decorated elephants. We had heard about the largest cannon in the world, but it was further up and we had other places to see. So we skipped it and went to see Kanak vrindavan, a beautiful temple. By the time we reached the doors to the temple were closed. So we saw the garden in front of it. Then we went to see the City Palace. It was beautiful and lavish. They told us that we had to pay 200 bucks extra for taking a digital camera inside. So we sneaked the camera in. It was worth it. In front of the palace was the Jantar Mantar. Ajit and Nihar were not too interested but I had to calibrate my watch with the huge sun dial. It was cool. It was amazing to see that people were so intelligent even in those times when there were no resources.

Now people started getting jittery. So we went to Jal Mahal, saw Hawa Mahal from outside and then we went to Birla mandir, but the gods were not willing to meet us. It was closed too. So we headed back. Jaipur is an inviting city, not too large and also not too small. It has the freeness of a town and lacks the arrogance of a capital city. We packed our bags. We had four more hours to pass. We had only one peg each quantity of alcohol left. All bars were closed. Only way to get more liquor- the hotel bar, that means a lot of pleading and skyrocketing price. GP and Ajit were on it, while I transferred material from their laptops, external drives into my laptop.

Gp and Ajit came back successful. They got a whole bottle. So we drank and watched Johny Gaddar. Nice movie, retro style music. Nihar came back and we had to go. Bottle was unfinished, drink was unfinished.

Jaipur odyssey came to an end. We departed in our respective buses thinking which city next to discover.

The Invention called God

Who is God? What is God? Where is God?

 

The search is on for the most popular person on this planet.

 

Different religions, different places, different people but the concept of God is amazingly the same. It’s strange that a seven year old and a seventy year old define God fairly similarly.

 

He is the creator, the protector and the destroyer. The giver and taker, the savior, the truth, the supernatural, the most powerful (more than any superhero ever conceived), kind and just, friend and father, love and friendship, solution to every trouble, answer to every question, the best of everything. He is the only perfect thing in this universe. He is divine peace, the salvation. He is life and he is death. He was there before the beginning; he will be there after the end. He is as small as the atom and as vast as eternity. He is time, space and matter, neither alive nor dead.

 

Down the evolutionary line, the moment we can start calling man as man, he has known God. Earliest gods were nature gods-Sun, rain, sea, wind and fire-made gods because they were both the source of life as well as destruction and because they were out of his control. But now we know that sun and moon are no more than celestial bodies and water and fire, states of matter. Still God remains.

 

Man invented God. Everything out of his control, anything that is unexplainable, out of proportion to his imagination is God. All miracles are God.

 

Fear is an important factor in the invention of God. Man needs him the most when he is afraid, scared, in trouble. And who can end all his fears- our superhero, God.

 

He is a role model, the dictionary of good and bad, encyclopedia of right and wrong. He is the good in everyone. He is man’s conscience- the best map with all the right directions.

 

So man created God when he was afraid, when he was amazed, when he was lost for answers or when he needed directions in his life. God is his ambition, his courage, his kindness, his humility, and his sanity. He needs him to go ahead and achieve something (from passing an exam to winning a war). He is man’s zeal and his drive to achieve perfection, the perfection called God.

 

Now let us consider this. Necessity is the mother of all inventions. And if there’s no necessity there is no need for invention (except for creativity, and inventing God in a stroke of creativity would result in no more than a superman). Suppose the impossible happens and the world becomes perfect, will man still need a God.

 

Yes, because God is something more and something else than all this. God is hope. God is faith.

 

Hope, that feeling which tells you that everything is going to be all right even when nothing is. It is the thing that keeps man living when life is not worth living. God is something that man can fall back on and start anew; he is his support when he has nothing to hold on to.

 

God is not about power, fear, reason, perfection or morality. God is about faith. It’s just that all these things make him God enough to have faith in. Faith in anything is God. Everyone has faith in at least something whether he believes in God or not. (Some people just have a problem with calling it as God- our friends the agnostics and atheists)

 

God is man’s companion when he is all alone. Prayer is his conversation with God. Man can talk to him whenever and wherever he likes. It’s like talking to a friend, someone who knows all your secrets, all your fears, all your shortcomings, all your needs, all your desires and still accepts you the way you are and listens to you no matter what. He is the one who knows him inside out. He is the only one on whom man can depend totally without the fear of betrayal. He is the only one before whom he can put his most unreasonable and weirdest demands (like before a Santa Claus) and ask the silliest questions. Man can share with him his deepest fears, his pain, sorrow and his joy. And he can be weak in front of God. (You may say it’s just like talking to oneself. Well, it is)

 

Man needs God just to tell himself that there is someone who is watching him, who cares for him, who will always be there for him no matter what and will set things right for him if something goes wrong. God is the outcome of man’s loneliness. (Who wouldn’t love the idea that a superhero is with him all the time)

 

God is a thought that each one of us creates inside our heart and mind, a thought that we keep for all our lives, a thought we have the ultimate belief in. (The agnostics and atheists will love denying the supernatural and accepting the psychological part of it)

 

The great ancient search will go on to prove his existence. But no matter what, God will never die. Man will keep him alive.

There are six billion of him on this planet but all very lonely (so lonely that they are searching for life outside this world). And as long as he is lonely he will keep God with him. That’s why he invented God- as his companion.

 

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Wonder Years

My school days.... : St. Mary's Convent School Ujjain.


Class VI: Childhood. Time passed at a leisurely pace. It took about forever for any moment to pass.

Class VIII: Adolescence. To be or not to be.

Class XII: The Last Year. I do not know why, but everyone was so eager to get out from school and go to college. Ya college was fun and everything but still sometimes i missed school. i wish like childhood was about 20 odd years, youth for like forever and middle age for just a little while and then old age for a few days, just for experience and then poof and we should vanish. but i am no god, though i would be a good god.

A request......

This one is called " A Request". A man has lived his life. he is old and still full of life. one day death knocks on his door and wants to take him away . this is the request that the man makes to death to let him live just a little bit more. just to live small small lifetimes in each second ,in each breath. he has lived his life and has no regrets but wants all the passion once more, the passion called life.

here it goes...

A REQUEST

Just a few more moments,
A few more places to see,
Few more words to breathe,
Some more tastes to touch,
A little more air to eat.

A few more moons and a few more stars,
A wider horizon and longer hours.
Broken knees and broken hearts,
few more bruises , a few more scars.

Few festive nights, few lonely days,
Little more madness, a little more craze.
A few more directions and a few more ways,
little more clarity, a little more haze.

Few more smiles and little more pain,
Pretty sunshine and drenching rain.
A few more wrinkles on my face,
Few more footsteps in sand to trace.

Few more promises to make and break,
Few more lovely mornings to wake.
Few more memories to forget and remember,
A little more taste of thirst and hunger.

To find a few new questions,
And question a few old answers.
Few more decisions to make
Few more decisions to fake

To love once more and crash and burn
few left over dreams and a few new ones.
Few more flowers , a few more fires
A few more choices, a few more desires.

Perhaps a few more songs to paint.
And yes , a little more truth and a few more lies
A little hope and and a few more tries.

Just a few more colours in the rainbow before i go
My ashes in dust,
My life on paper,
A little more ink wasted

Love or Vengeance ???

Ward no. 19 , 10:45 am. Few of us flocking a patient, interrogating him, asking him silly and incomprehensible questions, as if under the blow of these questions the patient will break down and somehow will come up with the name of the disease himself from which he is suffering.

Few others of us have throned themselves on the side of the bed in an abnormal geometrical figure which we will be embarrassed to say was intended to be a circle.(no doubt why they didn’t take maths)this crooked circle was blocking the way of the desperate patients to the toilet.

Few, well only two were sitting with a lost look on their face and were looking for something in their books which I am sure even they didn’t know what they were looking for.

I entered the ward, yes 15 min late and tried to form a part of the interrogating team, then the oblong circle where I found the discussion too boring(same old blame game, politics, college administration grudges, cribbing, etc) and then finally tried to find the something interesting the rest two of them had found in their books(one was looking at the contents and the other at the index). Not amused I looked around the ward for something interesting.

And then a man’s wailing. I turn around and see a black, shriveled man at the edge of his bed at the verge of falling. Maximum possible movement was occurring at his head and the rest of his body was paralysed, limp. but in desperation even by this little movement and putting whatever was in him into that movement he was successful in dragginghis limp body from the centre of the bed to its edge which in his case is very long distance.he can’t speak and the only sound he can produce is a cry.

His eyes, sunken, dark, empty wre desperately looking at the door. Perhaps they were speaking.they had that childish fear in them which appears when left alone. This fear alone had given him such strength that he had scaled that enormous , impossible distance from the centre of the bed to the edge and he is about to fall.

Then came running through that door the figure whose momentary absence was killing him of loneliness. She was clad in an ordinary sari and a mangalsuta.she helped him back to the centre of the bed showing affection and care of a mother, wiped off his tears. She asked him what for he was crying but without any expectation of an answer kept pampering him. She knew the answer already.

But she was too young to be his mother.

She is Manorama, the wife and the dried up figure on the bed is Suresh the husband and this the love story of Manorama and Suresh.

Suresh is a soldier, now not so much of it. He has turned black, reduced to skin and bones, you touch him and everything pricks, his eyes are hollow, face expressionless, can’t speak, only cries for communicating anything like a child, his whole body is limp.

Yes, you are right. He has AIDS and is dying, not today but sometime soon.

And yes, you are right again. Manorama is also HIV+ve. Where did she get it from? Any guesses? You are right again.

Well suresh was HIV+ve all the while. He was living with it when he married Manorama. this gruesome fact was not disclosed by either suresh or his family. Crime ?

Manorama used to look at her husband’s nails. They were so black. But suresh told her that he had alwaya had them. Every month herbal medicines reached their home by post. But suresh told her that they were for his stomach which was always upset.he did whatever he could to hide it from her and in the neantime wrote for her the same destiny that he had chosen for himself. Crime ?

Then an attack of paralysis to suresh…..hospital…..tests…..and the tuth. Manorama’s universe collapsed. It was worse than capital punishment for her. The deadly disease was a gift from someone she had loved. She was going to hang for someone else’s crime, or in a different way she was murdered.

Anger? Hate? She didn’t even get the time for them. She was shocked.
Did she leave him? No.

She saw her love reduce to nearly a vegetable. she cried not for herself but for him.
Now she is with him day in and day out, caring for him all the more. but why is she doing this, why doesn’t she leave him.

Maybe this is his punishment. She is treating him all the more with love and care than before.for suresh would have expected her to leave him , run out on him.that would have given him pleasure, the kind of pleasure people get from pain.he would have found pleasure from the fact that he is left alone when he is in pain.

This feeling of an outcast, loneliness, nobody to care for him would have made him happy. It would have given him a reason to hate the world and would have found happiness in hatred. The fear of dying with which he would have lived alone would have given him pleasure. So much pleasure that he would have killed his guilt for the crime he had committed. In the search of this pleasure he would have gone to such an extent to even blame Manorama for leaving him alone to die.

But Manorama won’t let him have his pleasure, kill his guilt, hate the world and make her responsible for all this. She will make him realize his crime day after day by remaining with him, by caring for him. This is his punishment- love. unconditional love.

He is now dependant on her for everything, needs her all the time around him so much so that he cries when she goes out of sight. He feels lonely in a minute. He feels he is being left alone to die. he is like a child.

And the ultimate punishment- forgiveness. Manorama has forgiven him his crime. She has forgiven him for taking her life. The reason? What could it be?

Suresh never wanted children of his own. Now she knows why. She has forgiven him because she would have died a thousand times if she were to see her child suffer.

But she has her child now- Suresh. And she loves him very much. Unconditionally, like a mother.

Manorama hasn’t informed her family for they would have taken her away from him. She’s not at ease with her in laws either. They are up every month for suresh’s salary and she fights with them because she has to take care of her child.

She says to Suresh” se Mr. Suresh Kamble , what all your wife has to do for you. This will remain happening if you do not stand up for me. I want you to get up and stand beside me.”
And Suresh Kamble just stares at his mother like every child does.

This love story like any other great love story will end in a tragedy, but unheard.