Life's Tug of War

Life can seem ungrateful ~ and not always kind...
Life can pull at your heartstrings ~ and play with your mind....
Life can be blissful ~ and happy and free...
Life can put beauty ~ in the things that you see ...
Life can place challenges ~ right at your feet...
Life can make good ~ of the hardships we meet...
Life can overwhelm you ~ and make your head spin...
Life can reward those ~ determined to win...
Life can be hurtful ~ and not always fair...
Life can surround you ~ with people who care ...
Life clearly does offer ~ its Up and its Downs...
Life's days can bring you ~ both smiles and frowns...
Life teaches us to take ~ the good with the bad...
Life is a mixture ~ of happy and sad...
SO
Take the Life that you have ~ and give it your best...
Think positive, be happy ~ let God do the rest...
Take the challenges that life ~ has laid at your feet...
Take pride and be thankful ~ for each one you meet...
To yourself give forgiveness ~ if you stumble and fall...
Take each day that is dealt you ~ and give it your all...
Take the love that you're given ~ and return it with care...
Have faith that when needed ~ it will always be there...
Take time to find the beauty ~ in the things that you see...
Take life's simple pleasures ~ let them set your heart free....
The idea here is simply ~ to even the score
As you are met and faced with ~ Life's Tug of War

First Decade…A 

Toddler Dream !

One of the Character in Merchant of Venice, a play by Shakespeare said, "World is a stage and everyone has a part to play, mine is the sad one". If its said for Mr. Lemon, the dialogue goes "World is a stage and everyone has a part to play, mine is the lemon one". he he he....that was really a bad one. Jokes apart, the thing is Mr.Lemon is completing 2 and half decade of existence in this planet of apes....ups human this Wednesday. So to celebrate i thought lets review the first 25 years of life and see how the things were, and let me prepare for next twenty five years...What say ? good idea...So for this detail review i have split my life into two and half decade. The First decade of a toddler one, the second decade of a teenager boy and half decade of a mature man (thought i still find myself existing between first and second....what you think?)

Initial day in my life, was pretty good, infact fantastic...enjoyed a lot as being the only child. Whole focus of my parents was garner by me. Being very sweet, very silent (still am), very shy i was an introvert person drastically living with in myself. One thing that went terribly wrong in the first decade was i attracted myself towards getting hurted. I had seven small and big incident s of cut, slide, fall with 3-4 stitches near my eyes, hand , head, etc in first eight year despite being a very sidha sadha bacha. I am still wondering who said "Mard ko Dard ahi hota"! I feel it was just like bournivita to make me more strong,  I used to have bournvita and i still have.....

I was deeply involved in drawing, learning keyboard, Skating but was only successful in the last one after loosing my front tooth..I finally stood 4th at district skating champion and am still proud of it. One thing which I did passionately was playing and following cricket. One of the dream was to play for my country but eventually end playing at least for my class and my apartment teams. 

In the first decade i started my school, made some really sweet friends and started my journey of being myself. The only problem which i had even i childhood days i use to do what others feel boring. I still like to do things against the wind, some times i feel myself a kite who just swing in the air against the wind or as a small ship sailing against the sea. In short first ten years of my life was just like every other toddler with some humpty dumpty accident but eventually ending up being parents twinkle twinkle little star.

The 27s :  The Greatest Myth of Rock & Roll

Club 27: The price of Membership, was more than one could handle.......

When Amy Wine house died last month, pop culture historians couldn't help but notice that she was 27 years old, thus joining a long line of celebrity musicians who have died at that age, including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones and Kurt Cobain. Call it "The Curse of 27" or the "27 Club."

As we all now know, these influential rock and blues stars all died at 27 and are some of the most famous members of the "27 club" (also known as the Forever 27 Club). The media's been obsessed with it since Winehouse died. But musicians are aware of it, as well. Kurt Cobain knew about the curse of 27: His mother, Wendy O'Connor,famously said after his death: "Now he's gone and joined that stupid club, I told him not to join that stupid club."

But though the curse might bring chills up your spine, all it takes is one look at someone like Mick Jagger, Lou Reed or Iggy Pop to remind you that death doesn't work in real life the way it does in the fatalistic "Final Destination" films. For every famous musician or artist who has died at 27, of course, hundreds more, many with personal problems just as significant, have not.

Yet something about this legend persists even today with Winehouse's death, despite the fact that the majority of the infamous 27 Club members died within a two-year span in the late '60s and early '70s. (Creepy footnote: The two bookends to that period -- Brian Jones and Jim Morrison -- both died on July 3 ... exactly 24 months apart.)

No person, no matter how many demons they had at age 27, would want that club in their obituary. I've seen some people who think that these deaths are intentionally timed. Like Kurt Cobain intentionally killed himself at that age simply to be in that club. You know, he suffered from depression, drug addiction and numerous other issues. He tried to kill himself at 17, 25, 26 as well, so it's not like he did it just to join a club. It's unfortunate that as a grieving mother, [O'Connor's] quote about the "stupid club" is what made it into the press, because now that's what we think of when people die at that age.

So no, I don't think there's a curse.  I think the number is meaningless. What we're talking about are extreme accounts of extremely troubled young people, which I don't think is a phony category at all ... I don't think it's hogwash to correlate people who fit into that "burning brightly" cliché; I think that means something. But the number itself is meaningless.

You could draw parallels here -- and I'm not trying to be funny at all -- that as certain drugs have become way more potent in the last 10 years, fame itself became much more potent. I do worry that this new speedball combination of fame, talent, sensitivity and a chemical predilection is something that most people won't be able to handle. Fame looks like literal torture these days.

So does this club 27 exist?? or is it just an urban legend?? i don't know. Well, they say, it kicks in, when it kicks it. It has been more than 40 years since the death of some of these rock stars, but people still strive to pay respect and tribute to them when the time comes.Many of today's rock artists have followed club 27 members and many play their music as a respect of their own. the number 27 is a major deal in the rock music genre, as an astounding number of legends passed away at this age. It is a club not many can afford the membership of..........

Better Off Dead…

On this day, i cant help but remember a poem written by a friend of mine... I post this poem in memory of a  guy who passed away yesterday... May his Soul find Peace... This person happens to be my friend's boyfriend... i don't know him very well personally, met him a couple of times.. Truly a sad sad day of all his near and dear ones... Seeing Death so closely gives a person a higher realization of self and God..! Sometimes i wonder, Why are the Gods so cruel.... Death to someone SO young.. who has hardly seen anything in life yet... Cant even imagine the pain of his family... true to the line.. "the Gods must be Crazy..!!"




Bullets on the ground aside this dead boy i see,
blood spread over the walls, how could this be?
the gun in his motionless hand, letters on the other,
words of love left to read now for his mother,
papers on the ground aside this boy i see,
his hearts been left with a hole, his souls been set free,
he has written about this life his past and how his life lost its meaning,
the police come in now who are left for this cleaning,
they tell his mother it was a suicide,
they tell her about how many have done the same and died,
she spends hours awake to now see,
whether her son has left her, now she has to agree,
i cum across his face and i see a smile,
there is a sense of shock within me for a while,
as i read his stories and his words,
of how this boy saw life which was blurred,
this boy will never wake up to breathe,
finishing his writings he felt he was complete,
and finished his time in this world,
his words now seemed true,they began to swirl,
everything was shaky now, i see a light,
i try to move away from it, i try to fight,
it turns dark now, day turns into night,
i see a script on the wall now it is in sight,
about how this boy felt, how he bled,
                                                                and how i decided, i was better off dead.....

KARMA….

I was never a big believer of past life, karma and philosophical stuff like that.. All my life, (of whatever I've lived so far) i have always believed, hard work always pays.. I am a believer in God, being born in a Tamil Bhramin family, that is the least my parents would expect..I thought God helps those who help themselves... Words like fate, destiny, the circle of life, what goes around..comes back around are nothing but excuses for not succeeding, and never had any significant meaning in my life.. I often ignored all this, thinking it is nothing but just another kitty  party topic..

For those of who who don't know, i flunked my CA exams, in the results announced 3 weeks back... and i am not exaggerating, i had out my heart and soul into it.. For 1 year, i had studied as if  my life depends on it... As it turned out, i flunked the exams when almost All my friends cleared and are employed.. I am not trying to say, that i flunked because of my karma, or whatever, my point is, i deserved better... the point is not  the cliche', "why me?", maybe i may be flawed..i may have gone terribly wrong somewhere..  But i couldn't help my thoughts becoming so philosophical..

This might be  the reason, elders usually say, Be good and Do good all the time... Maybe Karma will be a lesser bitch if we be so.. We all talk about Karma and how it haunts people.. so what is this so called ghost called Karma?? Karma is a principle by which a person is rewarded or punished in a particular birth, or incarnation, according to the deeds or actions of a previous incarnation..! Sounds more like, u don't have the licence to be bad ever..! if you are, well, watch out, someone is watching you...! I don't know if i failed in spite of disciplined efforts because of my Karma, i of-course don't know what i was and how i was in my so called 'previous incarnation'.. But i cant help but spare a thought for it... As the events are unfolding in front of me, my own life, the life of people around me, i sure do at the moment think, Karma is the biggest bitch..!!

It reminds me of the famous speech by Steve Jobs where he talks about, how the happenings of today's events may not make sense right now, but in the future, the dots will automatically connect... and the picture would be clear that day.. not today of tomorrow...  Living today hoping to be a passing phase and wishing for a bigger brighter future.....  As the saying goes... " If it's not right, it's not the end............"

Losing My Religion

Religion? well, when people hear this word, the first thing that flashes in their head is GOD.. Religion, after all, is a man made set of rules to be followed if u worship a particular person, or a divine figure, some call them God, some prophets, some they just call him a savior... So, GOD? who is he after all?? where is he?? 


I am born and brought up in a Tamil Bhramin family. By nature my parents are very religious, very spiritual, and very methodical and precise while doing their daily poojas to the periodical havans (a ritual using fire) and donations to temples and places of god's worship.. Naturally, they have inculcated this virtue in me as well.. And being an obedient boy, i have always accepted what ever they want me to learn n practice. So this childhood habit has become a value for life for me.


But, i always thought to myself, what the world would have been, if the boundaries of religion not existed.. Countless people have died and millions are still  fighting over this limitless boundary called Religion and God.. When all that religion says is Love one and all.. Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Allah, all came to this land, and all of them got the message of love..Yet, fanatics spread terror in the name of God. 


Sometimes i wonder, how many lives would have been saved and how many could have lived another day, had God not Existed at all....?!!! i also think, is God blind to all the misery in  the world.. 25000 people dying of hunger EVERYDAY in the world..! what is God doing??? the so called 'cursed' land of japan, Tsunamis and earthquakes have claimed billions and billions of lives there.. The nuclear bombing on Hiroshima Nagasaki, killed not only a million people, but also deformed their  future generations. In India, more than half the population is below the poverty line. People are so poor, they have to eat their own feces for a meal..how pitiful is that Innumerable suicides, babies, infants, being killed, women being raped, child killing his mother, mother murdering her daughter, countless divorces.. Now tell me,  WHERE IS GOD??????????????????


Every morning the headline of a tabloid is corruption, arrest, rape,death,loss in business etc... i don't even remember, when was the last time i read something happy or that brought a smile to my face in morning headline. corrupt government officials who loot the general public, the gangsters and burglars who roam the streets, the bureaucrats and politicians who cheat people to accumulate their personal assets, the terrorists causing mayhem are all living life king size...! is this your GOD????????? 

Give all that u can, to the biggest scoundrels, let them live their lives so royally and on the other hand, give nothing but more and more pain and suffering to the poor and modest class.... Even if these rascals are brought to justice some time in the future, they have already lived their lives so happily, any punishment would look small for them, on the contrary, the other class of people, they would be praying to never take birth in this planet with  such a cruel God.. 

I being so religious from childhood, and a strong believer in god, needed his help or rather his grace in a defining moment in my life... And guess what, God was apparently  absent that day... The land beneath my feet slipped...i was in a state of complete shock... in my conversation with God, i told him,"i gave u all that i had, believed in you, worshiped you,never lost faith in you, then why didn't you help me??" i never got an answer from him..! And since that day, i have been losing my faith in him... i am losing my religion...! I want a few answers to my questions....

People say, whatever is to happen will happen.. it is not in our hands etc...well, i don't really understand, what good in this misery? can the world get any worse?? will the sun ever rise in this world?? Will i get what i deserve? will the world be a better place? will our children too suffer the same fate?? If there is any God up there.... ANSWER ME..!!!!!!!

TRUST REALLY?

 

We have heard a lot of people say, "Trust.. That is the only hope left in the world".  Yes, I agree to some extent. Trust is essential in everyone's life, and one must always have trust.. But, how far and importantly how well can you really trust a friend..??

Read the real life story of a 18 year old girl (then 14), who is a very dear to me, she paid a heavy price for trusting her friends!

August 2007

One week before the plan:
A group of friends were scheduled to meet after 2 long years. These guys are childhood friends and have known each other for 6 years. Rishi, Nitin & Jennifer (names changed to protect identity). As decided, they were to meet at Rishi's place for a reunion.

2 days before the plan:
She was the youngest in the group.  Rishi asked her to meet him at his place & promised that Nitin & Jennifer would come over too. She didn't bother confirming the plan with them  because she trusted Rishi. And naturally so, because she had known Rishi all her life, grew up wid him, not in her wildest dreams she would have known what was in store for her..

On the planned day:
She reached Rishi's place in the afternoon as decided. To her surprise, there was no one but himself in the house. She asked him where Nitin & Jennifer were, he said they would reach in no time. They waited for them. She waited anxiously, while he was pretending to wait. Who would have guessed what happened next?

Rishi tried to get close to her. She felt uncomfortable. And tried to push him away. But he held her tight against the wall & started to strip her. She was trying to refrain, but he was too strong for the helpless girl. He kissed her forcefully, all she could do was pray and hope for some help..she got none! No one came to her rescue. Not even God..!  She was crying! She was in pain. He forced her to the bed. In her self defense, she bit him hard on his forearm, hit his testicles, grabbed her shirt & ran out of the house..

Weeping on her way back home, she called up Jennifer to ask why didn't she come. And to this girl's disbelief, she learned that, Jennifer and Nitin, both weren't aware of any plan of a reunion....
That girl couldn't take it, she felt so cheated and heart broken.. So much for trusting an old friend...?? She felt sick, she wanted to die. She paid a heavy price for trusting someone who ended up assaulting her sexually.. She tried to end her life several times after the incident and was under heavy medication to control her depression..

For many of you, this may sound like a bollywood mega hit, All this happened to a person who is so dear to me... I feel like laughing, when anyone says "Trust me.."


Trust is good... Too much of it, is bad.. How much to trust a person, well, that is an individual's call... I hope this story would be a lesson to my readers..