Being in a hospital

It is a strange world we live in. Ignorance is bliss. Indeed it is. We discuss death; think of it; talk about it and know it’s gonna come for sure but when it actually comes knocking on our door, ain’t we frightened out of our wits?

I was one person who always claimed death to be my close buddy. Adolescent years’ struggles had me clutching onto the rims of death, trying to pull it my way all the while.

But today is a different story. I don’t know if I am trying to say I can still look at my own death in the face. Haven’t thought in that line yet! But sitting in this hospital ward listening to painful moans; looking at ghastly pipes shoved in various openings of the patients and holding my friend’s feverish hand; I fell a change in my vision of death.

Death is to come to us, all of us. ONE DAY.
But so long as no illness knocks on our doorstep, we ain’t aware of it. Death is a ghostly shadow lurking in every brick of this hospital ward. Hospital- this very term is a big joke of an oxymoron. Hospital is the last place we would wish to be in YET it is the first place we think of in times of illness.
I would like to loath the people who got this grand idea of a hospital where people breathe their last. At the same time I want God to bless these same people for in this same place, people take their first breath of life.

If this is a place abundant in pains and illnesses; this is the place where there is cure. I hate my presence here in this hospital ward yet feel lucky that I’m here nursing my ailing friend back to health.
Call it life; call it death; it is here you’ll find
Call it cure; call it pains; it is here you’ll hear
Call it blessing; call it curse; it is here you’ll feel.

Another Rainy day!

The Heaven above has opened her chest and let down the much awaited monsoon drops. Yesterday was an extremely hot day topped with power shut down for eight hours. Totally baked in oven like hot house I couldn’t help cursing the kind of houses the people here build, I mean come to see for yourself; everywhere you go, you see this box like buildings with limited openings they call house.
Just the other day I had taken my mom out for a walk and I couldn’t help wondering why people here preferred a box life. Had I been some kind of Architect I would definitely have understood the principle behind such houses but being not one it failed my reasoning.

If I ever lived here, I told my mom, I would build a house with windows all around the house. Tall glass windows which I would leave open so that the whole air in the house would circulate and make the house cool in its sultry summer days.Well, picture this..tall window glass, raindrops pelting hard outside, You see the cool drops yet is saved from getting wet(achoo! saves you from the nasty cold that could follow after such wetting!)

But today of all I longed for those tall glass windows. The raindrops pelting with roaring thunder had me watching it meekly from the enclosed small frame of the window. Many a times I dared to go out and once I even ventured out of the gates and looked heavenward with raindrops pelting on my face. I loved the way the drops touched the pores of my skin. It’s simply beautiful the way the raindrops dances on your skin. But I had to scurry back inside when the ear piercing thunder clapped followed by blinding lightning.

Another grand idea sipped in my pores following the raindrops. I made myself a hot cup of coffee and here I am with my laptop,listening to Ishq sufiyana ; the raindrops occasionally lightly touching me. Coffee, rain and a song you live…what better way can you think of to live a beautiful rainy day!

Deathly thought

The Staffroom during recess time is far noisier than any classroom left unattended by the teachers. “If my husband is thinking of getting married after my death, I’ll recommend your name,” Deki says in her high bass voice. Others giggle. “Deki is getting her husband married.” That guarantees some queer glances from the lopens sitting in the faraway corner.
Nonchalantly we resume our topic. “I see her genuine love for kids,” Deki adds trying to sound serious. Deki and serious talk is two different end of the rope. “She would be good to kids even if she is their stepmother,” her thoughts go on multiplying.
I know why she is saying that. She is holding a baby book I had bought for one of my friend who is a first time expectant mother. Leafing through the cute contents of the baby book, Deki can’t help but see through those pages and read my genuine love for children.
Among quakes’ of laughter I drift into my thoughts ( so, like me!). Taking Deki’s cue about her death, I think of my own death. Suppose people are made to talk about me on my DD(death day) ;would they have the same pleasant kin of opinion like Deki?
Well, let me try. I conjure up the first speaker. Some body randomly from the crowd of my acquaintances. “She never looked at the sunny side of life. So darn boring woman! Good Riddance!” I cringed at that thought. My very much alive soul reposted,” if only you knew how I always lived in the imaginary sunny world.” The person left the podium with an air of self- importance, having broken the ice.
Then appeared another friend,” she always brought pickles.” I let out a giggle thinking of how popular my homemade pickle gets in the staffroom. Well, I never held myself responsible for the pungent smell that others who went home for lunch complained of.
“She never beat us!” I heard a group of my students shout. As I was reveling in that line, I heard some of my male colleagues speaking under their breath,” she spoilt the kids that way!”
“Ewww, bad,bad,bad “ That’s what my li’l daughter says whenever she doesn’t like something that’s happening around her. So I borrowed that line from her as this spoiling thing crept in my mind.
I changed the position of my footsie, pulling the one that was crisscrossed to a bent at the knee position. I should have changed my line of thought but that’s what I wanted to do when I changed my leg’s position. But then I heard a distant murmur coming from across wires and cables, “She was so full of herself; in her blog she would write about herself , her kids, her family, her world…” I cut short that with,”hey! I know nothing to write about anything else.” With that line my mind shut all lines for further deliberation.

What am I asking?

Relation of the heart is the easiest and the most complex of all feelings on Earth. You try to solve the complexities of it and it shoves one further into the wider complex nature of it.
I sat watching one of my teenage days’ movie. The hit song from that move was an anthem my best friend and I played every morning before setting off from home to school. The two of us know how the melodious,”mera mann kyun tumhe chahe….” Would send shivers in our teenage heart.
Love has always moved every heart. I am sure this fact can’t be denied by even the hardest of the hardest hearted person (if there exists any). Love has come easily in every heart and the living example is all of us dwelling on this planet. My six years old daughter talks a lot about her classmate,Jigsel. When her cousin who is her senior in school tease her with Jigsel I see a shy smile spreading on my daughter’s face. I know this is just a child’s fascination for the other gender but what I realized is that love has no set age. It can happen to anybody.
But as we grow up love too starts getting complicated in its ways. The mere fascination of having that person as a playmate changes to the immature obsession for the other gender. The adolescent years are the most beautiful phase of this feeling called love (this is my purely opinion based on the assumption that such kind of term suits only the teenagers).
The fantasy of having a fulfilled life of a fairytale ending dissolves every inch of our teenage heart. But now that I’m an adult much deep into the phase after the “…and they lived happily ever after,” I wonder why there are no fairytales that talks about the life after the THE END? We never question that even now when we read it to our kids during the bedtime. We simply end it at THE END.
But if only we had the wisdom of questioning what actually happens after the THE END in any love tales, we would be well prepared for the reality that waits in the fantasy driven feeling we so much worship. But again, sometimes I feel are we unprepared for the phase ‘cause we have never been told about it in the stories?
I look at several marriages around me. I ain’t claiming the institution of marriage to be a failure but in every marriage I’ve seen the best of the lovers claiming complacency to have marred the very essence of the love filled relationship.
Why does the spark of magic of merely holding hands disappear in an aged marriage? Why doesn’t the same kiss turn the prince side of the spouse on? Why does other feelings like anger and frustration become so easy predator to what was once a feeling of love? I ain’t claiming that all marriages end up in such lousy manner. Yet! In all marriages there are disagreements and arguments (although the degree varies). And with every small tiffs the chasm of differences widen.
Some people are wise enough to quickly mend up the walls of their broken heart and change the foundation of the bridge before the chasm eats up the whole bridge. But not all are blessed with such aptitude. There are unfortunate few who give up on the battle of commitment even well before they give a try.
Love turned sour is the most bitter of all kind of negative feeling. While there are people seeking to relive the love they couldn’t in the past there are people who are having difficulty in handling their present love situation. While some are having difficulty solving their current differences, there are people who shed even the complexity of the future.
Yet! Amidst all, my question still remains unanswered…is marriage the alarm clock in the dreamy world of love? Lets ponder!