Oh to be alive

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...

The headline may reek of sheer plagiarism, but nothing could sum up the current bizarre state of affairs (pun intended) and even State affairs, better than Mark Haddon’s title of his masterpiece, by a similar name. Therein lay some layered, labyrinthine intricacies of the human brain, to which not all the answers are easily available; but what one is noticing now with the social networking boom is a strange disorder, or let’s say an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) of a different kind.    An eerie silence envelops the being as one looks around the metro coach, packed with people of all hues and types.  But, if one were to tune in, to the sounds of silence, the extra sensitive tympanum would certainly pick up a humming buzz, emanating from the shiny, colourful objects that each individual is tapping into. The speed, with which nimble fingers collectively work on their respective screens, would put many a keyboard player to shame. They look up for a minute or l...

One hot afternoon, as the sun blazed overhead, I cruised along, on the near vacant roads:  a rare sight or opportunity, in the bursting-at-the- seams urban spaces. For nearly two hours, I had been out on a two-wheeler and was on the lookout for the shade of a tree to park and call a friend who lived en route. But, not a single tree that would give shade, was visible as far as the eye could see; this being one of the posh main roads, of one of the so called fast growing cities of Gujarat, that once upon a time prided itself for its large number of verdant,  robust trees. Not meaning to feel despondent, I veered toward a scraggy looking one that was barely big enough to provide shade to a squirrel, leave alone me. Just as my irritation seemed to be mounting, I saw the most beautiful sight that made me stop dead in my tracks, despite the scorching heat.  A little ahead of me I saw a man riding a rickshaw, meant for carrying goods and not people. Well what could be b...

In the deepest recesses of the mind, there is sometimes a thought unkind, niggling, dying: resurfacing, sublime. Shadows, traces: some morose, some exultant, well defined. Jostling colours, fading shapes, moving pictures, convoluted lives. Rearing its head yet again, it connives, gasping for breath, its pushed out, dying. Supplanting it with seeds of love, washing it out, in bright sunshine. In the far recesses of the mind, sometimes there is a thought unkind…   ©Copyright Suverchala Kashyap