Land of Black Gold, Yellow Sand And A Thousand Screaming Throats!

When thousands of white paper squares crash against you accompanied by the wild beat of drums and sheer magnitude of a hundred powerful throats, you cannot help but look heavenwards at the thick mass of people lining the top edge of the gallery, leaning down and making their pleasure known.

The first time this happened, it took a little while to register that the Arabs who were doing this were actually celebrating their team's victory. It was the final of the Qatar Football league and the leading team had just won the tournament. What followed that day is one of the reasons why I love sports so much.

No matter who it is by your side, you invariably hug him/her when your team wins. It could be a person you have grown up with, or someone whom you didn’t even know existed ninety minutes ago. There is no age, caste, creed, sex or any other constraints of society when it comes to two people sharing the common joy of their team's victory.

It is into this joy that I have flown down into. It is into this feeling of sharing that I have to go each time to find a new story. It is this feeling on oneness I feel each time I go to report an event.

What else could be more sweeter than the anticipation to a referees long whistle at the end of a particularly tense football match? Nothing, my friend, absolutely nothing!

The Fingers Of God!

I have flown before, but not like this. The fears and hopes of a getting into a new country and a new life will last only the first time. The next time one flies, one does it as a veteran.

I have always been fascinated by the landscape 36,000 feet under me, separated by the thin steel hull of the aircraft. Trees often fifty to sixty feet tall on land, appears as tiny as the nail on my little finger from air. The buildings would as well as have been not there.

This fascination for the landscape often made me demand a window seat where there were often none. I demanded that I should see the land below me move back like a floral carpet with intricate colour patterns – green, brown and grey, as only god could have ever designed.

This fascination was the same emotion which made me look ahead to a different colour pattern on the same big floral carpet – that of the Gulf, which would be my home for quite the foreseeable future.

If in India, the designs were all intricately woven into one another, in the Middle East, the grandeur lies in the vast palette of the same colour. It was the blue of the ocean that first greeted me, and then it was the gradually lightening shade of the same colour as land gradually kissed the ocean. And then the golden hue opened up and stretched as far as the eye would go.

Even as the announcement of the captain came over the P.A system that the plane was readying for landing procedures, the fingers of god was made visible.

The massive cloud ahead of us that completely hid the sun suddenly developed tears through out it's under belly. Even as we watched, the purest of lights shone down. One mighty beam of light shone brightly on my window and illuminated my face. I saw that the seat behind and ahead of me was shadowed by the massive cloud while I saw light. It was a personal message, I believe, hand delivered, in person.

I craned my neck as the light passed and saw the man behind me shut his window to escape the fierce light. Gentle tears formed, but amazingly, it did not burst forth, as sometimes it does. The cloud dissipated and once again the voice of Captain Kenneth boomed through the interior, ''We welcome you to Qatar, please prepare yourself for the landing…''

Somehow, I know that the Qatar phase of my life is being watched upon by the force, the same one which made itself visible through my most beloved phenomenon on earth– The Fingers of God.

Golda Meir... And The 25 Stephans!

In the book 'O Jerusalem' by Dominic Lapierre and Larry Collins, there is a portion called "GOLDA MEIR'S TWENTY-FIVE "STEPHANS". I tried many a times to get the entire extract from the web, but failed.

Each time i read the portion in the beat up copy of the book i have, I cannot help but cry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, men do cry too.

The portion details about how this lady came to New York with a broken coat on her back and $10 in her hand bag, entrusted with the job of finding 25 'Stephans' or $25 Million for buying arms to keep the enemies away.

Her pathetic dress ensured that she was referred to as a lady from the bible. She stood up and felt weak. And then, word became her and she touched an instant chord. By the end of it all, she had collected 50 Stephans where she was asked for 25.

She can rightly be called the 'Mother of modern Israel'.

I wish i knew her, if only to say that each time i read the speech, i feel its power -to move souls...

I wish i knew her, if only to say that i was honoured to share the same time span as she did...

I wish i knew her, if only to listen and learn about how to move the human soul by mere speech, like she so effotlessely did...

My Lady D'Arbanville

Finding the lady is the least of ones problems, its the rest of it that is such a downer...

And then... the lyrics of a song that took me by storm these past few days and one that promises to stay with me for a long time to come...

My Lady D'Arbanville, Why do you sleep so still?
I'll wake you tomorrow
And you will be my fill, Yes you will be my fill

My Lady D'Arbanville, Why does it grieve me so?
But your heart seems so silent
Why do you breathe so low, Why do you breathe so low?

My Lady D'Arbanville, Why do you sleep so still?
I'll wake you tomorrow
And you will be my fill, Yes you will be my fill

My Lady D'Arbanville, You look so cold tonight
Your lips feel like winter
Your skin has turned to white, Your skin has turned to white

My Lady D'Arbanville, Why do you sleep so still?
I'll wake you tomorrow
And you will be my fill, Yes you will be my fill

La la la la la.....

My Lady D'Arbanville, Why do you grieve me so?
But your heart seems so silent
Why do you breathe so low, Why do you breathe so low?

I loved you my Lady, Though in your grave you lie
I'll always be with you
This rose will never die, This rose will never die

I loved you my Lady, Though in your grave you lie
I'll always be with you
This rose will never die, This rose will never die

What The Hell Am Me Doin Here?

Anywhere else, i would not have felt so much like a stranger. In my office, on Wednesday, i did and i could not help it. Anyone would feel strange if...

1. You are one of the only ones watching the Indian Football team's performance against Japan on TV and feel bad about the 6-0 loss.
2. Half the office population is cursing the game to get over while the other half is leering behind my back at my craze for the lost cause.
3. Everyone feels that football in India is lost and nothing good can be done about it...

I beg to differ from the view that the game is dead in India. I for one, will not take n for an answer and am gonna do everything in my power to see if something can be done.

I just wish to state here that i have an agenda, a time bound one. For people who still feel that i am not crazy, it will be revealed in time. If you forget that i had promised so, dont worry, i will remind you...

Where Memories Sleep...

(This was written two years a go when the mother of my favourite teacher passed away. i got my directions wrong and went into a wrong cemetary, which ultimately helped me realize my littleness. i found the surroundings overwhelm me... a deep peace that only a cemetary can offer took over... differences mattered no more. the rich, poor, men, women, children, black, brown, white...everyone lay there, having six feet of earth common between them. i had to write this down then, before the words were lost on me, for ever...... and this is it, what my heart whispered and what the paper took it on itself.)


-“There is in all this cold and hollow world no fount of deep, strong deathless love, save that within a loving mothers heart”. -Tombstone, CSI cemetery, Sungam, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu-

I walk amidst a lot of memories, laid to sleep. Memories older than me and my father and my grand father. The revv of the motor engines and the poisonous fumes of the outer polluted world seems an eternity away. The tranquillity and the peace I feel here, I feel nowhere else.

The once pure white solid marble angel weeps softly on the final resting place of Anthony Philomin Joseph, aged 81 days, 67 years a go. How would he have looked? I wonder silently, knowing that I would never ever know… I entered the resting place of so many souls, some young, some old, some forgotten, some not…

I feel the sadness, I feel the calm, I feel the wetness of the soil, and the wetness made of what? Tears? I don’t know. I walk forward. Amongst the graves, I find a bone and I see its human, still brown and fresh and teeming with ants, sucking away the last of the life sustaining bone marrow. I raise my eyes from the bones unto the heavens in despair and finally it comes to rest on the lighted lamp. Somebody had taken the pains to clean their loved ones final resting place. Four fresh red roses, with the dew still damp on them, sat atop the memory stone, in deep respect and mourning for the rested soul. I am touched; love is a feeling so eternal and pure…

I feel the push of the memories from all sides, as strong as a rushing river and as soft as the faintest rustle of leaves on the gravel path leading to the cemetery, Memories fresh as the morning soil dampened by the early morning dew and as old as the holy holy parchments. I feel the love and the care that has gone into each tomb and I see the souls deep below swell with the amount of love heaped upon them. it’s a special feeling to be loved, through time…through all eternity.

I feel the shades of the trees, protecting those asleep, from hard wind and rain and sunshine, and comforting them with the gentle music of their leaves. A lone yellow bird sings sadly to break the weight of the silence all around. I feel a million eyes and a million hearts, all around me, looking lovingly at me as a son, an uncle, a great grandson. I bow my head in deep respect for the sleeping…

I bow my head before love, before never dying ever lasting memories, before the power to move the toughest at heart, the power that makes you humbler than humble, the power of remembrance. I shed a silent tear to all those people resting here whom I have never known and will never know. But one thing I do not doubt, they were good people, good at heart and soul when they lived… To be here at this place where the memories rest, is proof enough.

I walk back, heart filled with sorrow and joy and humbleness. Sorrow at not knowing them, joy at knowing they are in safe hands and humbleness at the magnificence of it all.

Dear lord, make me a better human being that I too, when I die may be buried at a place of memories, where I will be remembered for my good deeds and not hated for my bad ones… amen.

(Written on the day of the funeral of my teachers mother, when I found time and peace on my side, to walk around and feel for myself the silent, powerful, moving gift, of the place where memories are laid to rest…)



{last, but not least, an entry at http://ramblersbloc.blogspot.com/ gave me the final push to put this up on this site. Thanks, lady, for pushing me enough...whoever you are, where ever you are...}

One Game To Rule Them All?

Why does it always have to be one single GAME, in india? Why is it that it has to kill off the others? why is it that even on a particularly bad day of the GAME, three pages gets dedicated as to what went wrong? Remember, i am not even talking about the days when things go well...

I am sick and tired of people telling me that i am not IN because i dont like the GAME, where the fuck is the freedom to love games? Isnt someone who doesnt love the GAME considered a gamer?

I wouldnt have written this post, but the frustration is too great in me to have left it unwritten.

I live, i burn, i long to see the GAME come down, and in its place a thousand others arise. Those around me did that to me, period.

that written, i retire feeling a little inner peace come over me. But not for long, for the GAME has just begun when i write this and would go for another coupla days, and thaose days, would inevitably be hell for me, as it always has been...

Drummer Girl, Younger Boy...

This is about the kids and no, I have not mentioned them anywhere before. These are the countless nameless, faceless kids whom you meet each time you board a train in India that I talk about.

I was delving deep into my writing pad when I heard that familiar helpless music – of the drumbeat. Each fall of the stick on the tautly drawn skin drum emphasizes the hunger and pain that went into the effort. The little drummer girl looked at her tiny young brother, mutely pleading with him to break his arms behind his back, for his body to pass through the self made loop of his hands.

He was a nameless wonder boy because he had to be. The oily charcoal stain under the nose of the kid, in the shape of a moustache, heightened the pathos of the desperately little boy, in the garb of a man. He started the act by rotating a weight tied by a string, attached to his cap, round and round and round. Then, even as people watched, he somersaulted, and then did it again.

He made his hand a loop and took it all the way behind, under his leg and to the front of his body. The loop had completed itself. All the while, the little drummer girl poured her frustration into the beaten old skin drum, each beat louder than the last.

When it ended, the shameless spectators, witness to the open violation of the kids, began to concentrate on other things - for the little ones would soon come to them, to seek the rewards of pity for the inhuman act they had to perform.

The little drummer girl came to me and pointed at the empty food packet on my seat. She looked me in the eye and begged for food. I looked at my fat tummy and the tummy that was hardly there on her, for the first time in my life, I felt truly ashamed.

I pulled out my bag and emptied it on her lap. She dutifully took the food, gave a bun to her brother and saved the rest in the inside of the drum. As they walked on, I felt true sadness, but I had to blink away tears. Men don’t cry. But as I watched the young boy disappear with a bun in one hand and the metal ring to contort his body with in the other, all pretenses left me.

I cried like a baby…

Why Me Blog???

This entry is about why my blog is…

Around a 100 pages in 10 years may not be all that much, and it isn’t. That was exactly what I felt when I sat down to think about it, reflecting on what a waste I had made of my talents in writing. Then my baby started taking shape, ten years in the making, an outburst of all those lines I should have written, but didn’t and all those thoughts I have to pen down, but may not be able to…

Laziness clogged my veins and more importantly, my mind. It brought me a thousand deaths within me, but I live. Animals hibernate to wake up some day. This animal woke up too, after a long 10-year sleep. The mind does not have its previous sharpness; the words just will not come. Devoid of feelings and words, I almost suffered creative death.

I feel with each passing word a sense of belonging. This is what I do best and this is what should be done best by me. The passion to let the memories flow, from the center of the brain, to my fingertips holding the pen which became the extension of my hands years before; onto the whiteness of the paper that caused many a tree to be felled…

The words that died inside me frightens me to no end, it should have lived. My grandfathers words come back to comfort me, “nothing can bring back the dead, but nothing can take away the new born too…”

And that’s why I write, even if it means walking down painful memories, tearing away fiction from life. This is what I enjoy; this is what I truly need. This is what I was born for, and this is what I will live for. But am I getting across to people? Is anybody out there listening and comprehending?

In lands as diverse as the U.S, Dubai and Delhi, people staring at 17 inch monitors, running their eyes from the left to the right on a web page called Greeker… bear witness.