Dear Mother

I never say this to you mother,

but I am scared of darkness.

I don't show it very easily,

but I do care for you mother.

You know this mother, do you?

You know this mother...my mother.

Don't ever leave me in the crowd

for I won't be able to return home.

Don't send me so far away,

that you won't be able to remember me.

Am I so bad mother?

Am I so bad mother?

Whenever dad pushed the swing for me,

my eyes looked for you,

thinking that you would come and calm me down.

I could never tell it to him, mother

but I felt very cautious.

I didn't let it show on my face,

but in my heart I felt scared.

You know this mother, do you?

You know this mother...my mother.

I never say this to you mother,

but I am scared of darkness.

I don't show it very easily,

but I do care for you a lot.

You know this mother, do you?

You know this mother...my mother.

~

For a very dear friend.

Then and Now

Between then and now, 

lots has changed.

You and I, sigh, 

we have moved away.

Between dreams of yesterday

and realities of today

lie those memories, 

distorted here and there.

Beautiful they were, 

yes indeed very. 

Much as painful, 

ohh, they are today.

How do I forget them?

How should I?

Is there a way,

I can go back and say

"You are too good to be true,

so let that be.

Let's part our ways, *wink*

So Long and Godspeed."

Leave Home - II

Live Alone.

Live with friends. Parents.

Live with family. Live alone.

Live with her. Without her.

Memories. Forever.

Memories. Old as Wine.

Drink a Toast. To them Memories.

With Wine. Of Memories.

Paint them. With Wine.

Intoxicated. Lie. To them Memories.

Surreal Dream. Wake up.

Lie.

Leave. Live.

For Leaving is Living.

Forever.

* * *

Leave Home - I

Last Love

Is this the last time you’d tread this road

to say goodbyes you’d never thought you would.

As fast as moments, that flit by you tread

with spectral images that capture happiness

you look by, but one last time, is this the last time?

Is this the last time you’d look at the sun

far in the sky, the crimson one

which you have not but reached, when you turned away

only to look back and come again.

Once again, is this the last time you turned back again?

Is this the last time you'd say you love

but to yourself and not your love

who waits for you somewhere you know

in the corner of your heart, the lonely one

the lonely love divine, is this the last time?

Is this the last time you’d say goodbye

to never return again, and move with much pry

with hands that wave to a soul that departs.

Is this your soul, the hands that wave

that treads the road with a lonely heart.

Is this your heart, your lonely heart

that wants to love yet one more time

to live those moments yet one more time

Is this your heart that fell in love 

but one more time, is this the last time?

Indisputable

“For most people success is defined by their ability to reach far and high. But for few, it is defined by their ability to shatter themselves and then gather the pieces to being all over again.”

“All your life you live away from home

Far far away you raise a happy family of your own

You turn fifty and are now the home

Of a family you once dreamt of

That is now once away on its own”

“He was their dream gone wrong”

“I used to think that this is just a phase and will pass away soon

until I realized that the phase is the life and shall never pass

Now I know, that life is a phase and shall pass away some time”

“Are you the one? the same son?

that brought the sun

shine upon my garden?

Are you the son? the same one?”

“Sadness is inherent. It lies somewhere deep within, showing its traces in every emotion. But then the very cognizance about every bit of sadness in every other emotion that he displayed, made him feel happy.”

“A man who is unsure about his present always has plans for the future.”

“My Dearest Mother. You know it.”

“I have changed, to the extent that I now answer most of your questions with a smile. Not because I don't know the answer; but because I know you do.”

“Let this life not be a portrait of moments unlived, of words unsaid, of feelings unexpressed, of hugs unembraced. Let this life not be a journey of miles without walk, of success without failures, of hopes without sacrifice. Let this life not be yet another sequence of life unearned. Let every breath you take, every step you move, every word you speak, every thought you think remind you how life is all but one and is at its best when it's earned.”

“There are two phases in adult life. In 1st phase you meet all kinds of people telling you all kinds of things when you have no clue where your life is heading. In the 2nd phase however, you once again meet all kinds of people telling you all kinds of things when they have no clue where their life is heading”

The Leader of the Future

The blue and red pattern of the brocade carpet looked rugged and torn at places. It was so old, it could no longer attract attention towards itself let alone be as conspicuous it once was. But her tranquil eyes were fixed at it as if still admiring it’s jaded beauty.

Everyone around her looked attentively, not towards her but towards the whiteboard where the speaker was briefing about new possibilities for community mobilization. The spotlight moved from the speaker towards the person sitting on the other end of the conference room, directly facing her. All eyes, but hers, turned towards this new person who was the accounting champion. Some figures were announced, some pages flipped, faint sounds of scribbling could be heard but her eyes were fixed at the carpet. Between the volleys of figures being exchanged, I wondered if she heard the figures. I wondered if at all the figures meant anything to her. More figures announced, more sounds of scribbling heard and the spotlight eventually restored on the speaker; all eyes moved from the person to the speaker and so did hers. In an unflinching yet surreptitious manner she turned her gaze towards the person who had just spoken the figures and then slyly back towards the carpet.

From what I had heard about Ms. Tulsi Tamta what I couldn’t comprehend was how a woman who hadn’t had the chance to continue her education after primary was now the Secretary of a "Self-Reliant Cooperative Society" comprising of hundreds of members. As I sat there in the conference room wondering about its possibility, I looked towards her and had a feeling there was something unmistakably right about her.

* * *

I hadn’t informed her I wanted to write an article on her. Unannounced, the following day, I dashed off to the Input-Output center that was being managed by her in tandem with another. I glanced towards the store and found her keeping herself busy; arranging items, glancing at them and then rearranging them. I parked my motorcycle, entered the store and am greeted with her wide grin. During the interchange of smiles, I felt that a verbal greeting in the form of ‘Namaste’ was subsumed within gestural greetings.

I kept my belongings aside, sat down on a chair and announced my intention for coming there, to write about her. She became elated and threw her familiar grin. I started with asking her to tell about her life before becoming a part of the Cooperative Society. To ask someone to retrospect and talk about the internal changes one had gone through, sounded as a simple question. But to actually convey the question in a manner so as to dig in and fetch out the exact psycho-emotional changes that led to a radical transformation of the person required lot of skill, which I seemed to have lacked.

“Pehle mei ghar se kahi nahi jaati thi. Sirf ghar se jungle aur jungle se ghar. Pehle ghar pe mehmaan bhi aate the to badi mushkil ho jaati thi. Mei kaise saamne jaati hoon, kaise khilaati hoon. Pehle to jab mehmaan aate the to mei chip jaati thi” 
(“Earlier I never used to go out anywhere from my home. Just from the home to the jungles and back to home. I also couldn’t face the guests. It used to bother me a lot and I would hide away from them.)

I had not expected such a candid reply. But it seemed to convey more than just candidness. It was a harbinger for me to stop seeking introspective answers, to stop trying to establish a connection between her inability to go anywhere outside and her gradual ability to do so with all of it culminating with her becoming a senior member in the Cooperative Society. Perhaps it was connected somehow, but it would take time for me to assimilate that.

My subsequent questions to her were about her present life, about the changes she had undergone and the problems she faced due to her being illiterate. In her candid, outspoken tone she continued.

“These days whenever guests come over I sit with them and talk with them. These days apart from a regular dhoti, I wear Sari and Salwar Suit. When need be, I take my children on my own to Almora, Deenapani. These days I am able to stop a public vehicle. Earlier, I could never do any of these. I never was able to stop a vehicle and get into it. I was afraid to do so. I have changed a lot since earlier. I went up till class 5, but never got to see the books and then got married. But my husband, for some reason, believed me and knew that I could read and write. I still don’t know how to perform mathematical operations, but I tell my customers to do so and help me out. During my free time in the shop, I sit and study. My husband also helps me out. Since I can’t write to maintain notes, I try and remember the important things that need to be done. People still wonder why I need to work when my husband earns enough. They think perhaps it’s because of the Rs. 1000 that I am paid at the end of the month. But you know it, it's too less. At times it becomes difficult to explain to them the whole concept of the cooperative and to tell them how the cooperative belongs to them. I had never imagined I would ever leave my 'Home to Jungle and Jungle to Home' routine to be empowered so much one day. But having reached this platform, I think it’s just the beginning.”

I was left without words and didn’t exactly know what to express. At some level I was completely spellbound. More accurately I was actually stuck between a dichotomy; whether the story of Ms. Tulsi was the story of her destiny or whether it was the story of her power to change destiny. 

Whichever it may be, there was one thing that I was completely sure about. Watching her was like watching an 18 year old sit by the shore of a sea and gaze at its open waters thinking that someday she will swim through it and be on the other side.

* * *

Note: Ms. Tulsi Tamta is the present Secretary of Shri Mahadev Swayat Sehkarita Devaldhar, Bageshwar which is registered as a Self-Reliant Cooperative Society. 

The Revolutionary

“So why do you call yourself a revolutionary?”

It’s the wee hours of early morning, I splash some water onto my face and look at myself in the mirror. I try and look closely at my visage. I observe my eyes, the furrows just above it, the contours that run down from the corner of my eyebrows till the corner of my mouth forming a crater where once my cheeks used to be. Every time I look in the mirror I look for a different face. Sometimes I contrive to find it. Just the way he had said to me. Smiling, Smirking, Mocking, Laughing.

“Because I am mortal.”

It was about thirty years ago on a dark, sultry, inclement evening. The smoke from the barrels and the firings had covered the sky and turned it into a gloomy starless night. The atmosphere all around was tense. There were police constables and Black Cats ransacking the town and the state was in a mode of emergency. We were lying low with a tattered caravan covering us. The sweat from my body had mixed with the showers from above. The droplets that dripped from my mouth and my nose, I didn’t know whether it was my sweat or the rain and I couldn’t think about it then. He was lying next to me, bleeding, which is when I asked him that. The moment he replied to me it had not made much sense.

“When I look at people from your clan, I smile and the one thing that I am not is worried, for I know that in this country your clan is in minority. You are well-educated middle class men, you possess jobs worth in millions, you wear Che Guevara tee-shirts, you listen to hard rock and you smoke hash. You feel conceited about your education and grumble upon opening more institutions. You talk about progress and judge by numbers. You provide jobs and recruit your own clan. You remain awake with a coffee mug in your hand and stare at a terminal in front of you. You awe in shock when the graphs collapse and you take extravagant steps to secure your finances. You bring out candle light vigils when your clan is shot at and you turn your back when one of our men is killed, when one man from the rest of the majority is killed. Tell me, and you tell me very honestly, whenever you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see your visage differently? Do you see the man in front of you differently? Do you see him smiling, smirking, mocking, laughing at you for not what you are, but for what you are not? Tell me.”

I remember these words as clearly as as a kid I could clearly distinguish between red and blue and blue and green and green and red, for a memory as old as this is now transformed into a recurring dream. A dream that I see even with my eyes open. As he spoke these words he smiled and took the last breath. He had a bullet in his heart with his guts, from the shrapnel, ripped apart. At that very moment, I was conscious that God doesn’t really exist, because if he had and if as a kid I could distinguish between the reds and the greens and the blues, he, with two people lying right next to each other, wouldn’t have mistaken between the dispensable and the indispensable. Of course, just like I hadn’t understood what he meant when he said he is mortal, I hadn’t understood that God does indeed exist, though in forms I couldn’t have imagined then.

It’s been thirty years now since the revolution started and every now and then I meet such revolutionaries. They cry out his name in vanity and they say they want to liberate us all. They say he is their God and this is not the country he had perceived for us. Today, I met another young blooded revolutionary and I asked him what I had asked thirty years ago. “So why do you call yourself a revolutionary?” He was a young lad in his twenties, perhaps a drop out from school. He looked at me and smiled. “Because I am mortal. I will die someday. But the revolution, it will live on and on and on....”