Oh to be alive

Chronologically speaking there are two ends to a year, a beginning and an end. But, perhaps if viewed on a continuum, there is more to it than just two ends. There are several moments in time, ensnared, entrapped; pulsating and/or just being. In more ways than one the year that is, is just about to slip through the fingers with the speed of light and thought or the slowness of a languid afternoon, as one may want to perceive it; the truth is, it is coming to an end.  A word not many of us are perhaps fond of, but, only in every end, is a new beginning.  For some it is like a DNA strand, a complex, intriguing helical structure, imprinted with traces of eons that encapsulate or burst forth in the blink of an eye. Each molecule a beholder, each atom a memory bank, juxtaposed through time. In the run to the end, however, many overlook or forget the beginning, thus leaving the circle of life incomplete, unguarded; open to repetitive contempt. How one wonders would contempt en...

Often when anything bizarre happens in society, almost everyone likes to flee to a higher moral ground. If this is the case in a catastrophe, it is reasonably understandable as all one is trying to do is protect oneself physically and hence survive. Survival is the key, it is a basic and universal instinct looked upon as a means of adaptation. Both, being interchangeable, are to a large degree acceptable in the realm of Nature. There again if only the urge to survive becomes the uppermost need, then there wouldn't be the possibility of allowing another to hang in there, with perhaps just a toe-hold. Self-protection would take on in totality in deciding either or.  And that is just the beginning of the problem. So is it the survival of just an individual or an entire species? In the churning of the universe there is a constant upsurge of waves, only a part panning into view for a while but operating on a very subtle and micro-level are changes that impact eternities. Similarly...

For many their world came crumbling down like a pack of playing cards, or was it quicker, as nine pins? It was the last straw on a camel’s back and in a manner of speaking, the last bastion fell too. The speed, with which it has been crashing down of late, is indeed amazing, annoying and yet intriguing. But, the latest news to hit the headlines, literally hurt below the belt (in more ways than one). The ball/balls (not many have them though), was set rolling years ago, in the Indian firmament, when a super cop was accused of misdemeanor by a lady officer. There was official brouhaha and many a bureaucratic eyebrows and other unmentionables were raised. He first blatantly yet majestically denied it, and then subsequently apologized. Appalled were some in the set-up and many felt that it could/should have been overlooked or ignored by the aggrieved party. Who is to decide that and what exactly is infringement, always remains a debatable question in a lopsided society.   When th...

Matters of the heart in every which way matter! Be it a casual hello or a nod of the head across a street or corridor or just the glint of approval or scorn in someone’s eyes: it impacts us very deeply, affecting our psyche positively or negatively. A deeper insight thus into both the workings of the head and the heart are extremely essential. There are no thumb rules or established theories that would help one to tide over the intricacies of life, but certainly a few universal and time-tested rules could be adhered to, in order to sail through happily, rather than be faced with obstacles at every turn. At the core of our daily lives are relationships, as we are a gregarious species by design and thus default. From the age of hunter gatherers to a settled and more elaborately socializing group, we are up against newer challenges every single day. Old orders are changing, increasingly being replaced by a more global perspective. Cultural lines are thinning, merging or overlapping,...

Courage in the face of sheer adversity, grit and determination when pushed to the wall; aspiring, dreaming, voicing one’s concern, all of it and more is seen from time to time in the world around us. Right from bone chilling tales of escapes from the most horrendously warped regimes, with equally perverted mindsets, to sick minds on the loose in homes, on the streets and just about anywhere, the malaise is deep set. In fact it all begins and ends with the mind.    Pain, suffering, atrocities either experienced firsthand or through another, are all examples of the so called bestial primeval instinct in man; the inhuman side, once unleashed not only devours the perpetrator over a period of time, but wreaks havoc in everything around.  In times or climes such as these, where the world has become a narrower place to live in, there are competitions of a different kind, in spite of the Thomas Friedman model of a flatter, more equal earth, there are huge and glaring disc...

Slowly ever so slowly, over the last few years it has been dying a slow and painful, though sometimes almost hilarious, death. How could death and humour go hand in hand? Strange bedfellows would be an apt way to describe it.   Change is a part of life, one is told, there has to be a passing over, the cycle must be completed, one often hears. Hence what is, wasn’t so before, what will be, is not what it is right now or what it is supposed to transform into! The situation in question is baffling, intriguing, consternation-riddling and incomprehensible, to say the least. How then, just how does one see something go before one's very own eyes? Sometimes it is a murder, sometimes it is a self-destructive, callous and very strangely egotistic suicide. Sometimes it is due to a systemic spread almost akin to a cancer, where one rogue cell finds its way slowly, but surely into almost every healthy cell, fanned by the mediocre but potently artificial diet of junk food and steroid...

Perplexed, agitated and or plain and simply hexed, he wasn't really sure. This was not the first time it was happening. He had encountered many such situations, but had come out a winner always, well nearly always. He was different indeed and he felt it to the bone. The world called him weird, but he ignored it and relentlessly went on. They often jeered; he knew they called him all kind of names. It really didn't matter to him, as he knew the blood that coursed through his veins was just as warm as theirs, was just as blue as theirs; was just as red when he bled. He’d been like this ever since he could remember. As a little boy holding on to his mom’s hand as he entered the little nursery, he walked in with a certain calmness as the other parents were overwhelmed by the surrounding pandemonium, emanating from little, almost devilish creatures, feverishly kicking and hitting or just crying their lungs out. Even as far back as then he would walk into his class and patien...

He couldn't breathe. He sat down, holding his head in his hands and letting the feeling of exhilaration just sweep him off his feet. In fact it was not so much about being swept off the feet as it was about letting the feeling sink in: The feeling that he had finally given in. He prided himself in being different from the crowd, in fact not just him; he felt his friends of both genders felt different too and why not?  They all had an extremely healthy, balanced and well, to use a cliché, a different upbringing. Thanks to that and the fact that he was a boisterous creature, with a natural knack for making friends, he had managed to keep Cupid at bay. To put it more aptly Cupid had been quite unsuccessful in afflicting him with even a single arrow, dipped in the so called potion of love. Whether he had managed to hedge the arrows, or they hadn't really been aimed his way, was a debatable point. He hadn't succumbed in school or college either and even at work though h...

It was everywhere. There was no escaping it. I had deliberately cut myself off from the world in a way and thought not reading the newspapers would help, imagined that shutting out all sources of information would perhaps make things better. Well, better is a word hard to come by of late, worse being the more ubiquitous one, when one looks at the daily scenario. So not having followed the news for a really long time, for reasons as mundane as bad reportage, slipshod follow ups, corruption and the like, I unfortunately, only came upon the horrendous Mumbai-rape case three days after it actually happened. Turmoil in heart, mind and soul is the only way to explain the feeling of unease that washed over me. Disgusted and disturbed in equal measure, I tried to follow up every little morsel of material that was being shown, aired, and written about the sickening incident to understand if this was going to in any way lead up to stricter laws as was the mood after the equally inhuman act i...

It is that time of the year yet again, where there will be the same antiquated lip service to the way the country earned freedom, long drawn speeches on how many made tremendous sacrifices and how a large of number fought to get us our basic rights, and how we wouldn’t be where we are today, but for them. Almost every word of it is true, but does that fervor really hold everyone in its sway, the way it did or the way it should, perhaps not. Is there a nationalist agenda other than hurling the choicest epithets at each other by different political parties in the name of professing an undying love for the country?  Are there any programmes or policies worth their salt (for that is where it all began) that systematically encourage the building of national character, rather than individualized fragmented short sighted goals, that only fuel the fire of divide and rule (a legacy from our erstwhile rulers). There will be yet again, symbolic respect paid at every nook and corner, whi...

This seems to be the common lament of almost every adult today, but particularly so of parents, who are at a loss to understand what is happening around them. Where and when did the most prized and cherished part of life, suddenly vanish?    Once upon a time there were people who wanted this to be the most prolonged part, almost akin to an extended sojourn, in a journey, as it encompassed the best of everything: innocence, carefreeness and most of all wonderment. This sadly is not the case anymore. Of course in the days gone by there was the urge to reach that line, the forbidden line and hasten the process of crossing over into adulthood, but when childhood beckoned one reckoned it was far more interesting to turn back just that one last time! Now far from the lines being distinct, they are almost unrecognizable, sharply blurred and/or  fast vanishing. There is an indescribable hurry to reach the former finishing line. Earlier there was the much awaited, bated...

Most coffee-time or living-room conversations begin or end on a note of complete frivolity today, what lies in between is not even worth a mention. Rare are the places where one would bump into energetic youth discussing a point heatedly or even for that matter any adults doing the same. At the outset it may seem like the days of yore, when discussions revolved around a cause; a cause that may or may not be of direct consequence to the person endorsing or opposing it. Yet it would churn up a debate of sorts, fire the neurons, and even pump enough adrenalin. But a closer look reveals a strange malaise that is afflicting everyone, not sparing anyone: a malady of decadence in one form or the other. What seems to be spreading like an uncontrollable virus is the increasing breed of well-toned, well heeled, clinically manicured unisex humans, whose only calling is indulgence. Not for them is any talk of what led to them being a free thinking group of people, not for them issues that wo...

A hiatus, a sojourn does help one discern. There’s more to the world beyond, among the valleys and ferns. Verdant meadows beneath the stark blue firmament. The sounds of ravenous birds, fill the air with fulfillment. A rush of water through a crevice churns. A breath of freshness embedded in the foliage hidden around a turn. To be alive amongst these heavenly trails, is close to being a chosen one… ©Copyright Suverchala Kashyap      

Myriad experiences, nuanced and glaring, soothing and jarring, sprinkle our lives the moment we are born. In fact, some theories have proven that even before we set foot, actually head into this world, (as not too many cases are breach births, hence pun intended), we are sequestered by layered experiences; each of which bring along their fair set of added, minuscule particle sized, sub-experiences, as I choose to call them. These, once out in the open then start working their magic or sinking their poisonous darts into the hosts, as the case maybe and slowly, but very surely, people start building on these blocks of experiences and start perceiving the world around as good, bad or ugly and apply perhaps the same contextual, see-through glasses to perceive themselves. The results can be alarming, annoying and/or assuaging. Depending on the degree to which the mixture of life pouring through the sieve that one puts it through or sometimes prism that one shines it through: the con...

One needn't be a physicist or a psychiatrist to figure out that something is severely wrong in the world around us and within us. And it doesn't seem to be getting any better. The obvious reaction to a thought of this kind is understandably, a knee jerk, cynical reaction that every preceding and every succeeding generation would have and would arguably justify, as being a natural growth curve; So why the brouhaha or hullaballoo, one would say? The reasons are crystal clear and while connecting the dots, one discovers that the missing link lies in a four letter word that is not taboo, but has surprisingly been long forgotten; a four letter word that our ancestors lived with every single day and experienced consciously every moment, making them resilient and/or tensile as was the requirement of the hour. Other four letter words that are obviously over rated and bandied about like a good luck chant or charm are the ubiquitous ‘F’ word, and the Love word: both seem to slide int...

She counts the hours, by the rays of the Sun, she counts her breath, from when it begun. She counts the strangers from the shadows that come. She waits among the blur of the day, but only for one. He makes her complete; he listens, he talks, he is the winsome one; the only one to whom she has succumbed. Her life now revolves around a dream she’s spun, the shadows come and go, gnawing, clawing: eroding her soul. She waits still, unmoving, unnerved, for her exoneration is in the silent love embedded, deep in his heart. ©Copyright Suverchala Kashyap   (Inspired by the oldest profession of the world)

Who does one look up to, in terms of role models today? The newspapers and news channels are flush with corruption scams, rape cases, hate crimes, adulterous relationships, hit and run cases of BMWs and the like with the drivers being young and spoiled, indulged and callous; but, with the biggest weapon money.   Money that can buy you in, money that can buy you out, money is indeed what it’s all about. Money that is bandied about, changing hands, furtively moving around: money one just can’t have enough of, lucre honey, there’s only more. So the take home lessons are: be brash, be savvy, get away if you can, live in the fast lane; enjoy the benefits of another’s booty. Beg, borrow, steal; snivel and practice sycophancy, just do anything in the shortest possible way, but make sure you to get to the top at the fastest rate. Even if it means, trampling on another, being slanderous; adopting just about any salacious means to reach the luscious end. Devour, devastate, degrade any...