The dark Ray

Had I known what was waiting ahead, I would have stopped myself very often in the journey of life. But I don’t regret it because how I could discover the treasured experiences and things, like the dark ray, that surprise my life now and then, and helps me feel alive. Brightness itself is darkness in reality. Before we know the truth, we think it is bright, and brings color and brightness to guide us. But as everything, it comes and every hope is dissolved in the core of its darkness. The real color shows up to pay the price of those who keep faith on it.
I was a happy-go-easy boy armored by lively hopes and many things that I wanted though I had nothing. Every pain and tear was temporary and I never bothered them since I had them to be consoled. Life was really beautiful. How could I see through the ugliness of life when I was always happy? Hardly anyone cares for other, as I care for none. In fact, it was the time I didn’t even care for myself. It is true people tend to forget everything in happiness which itself is a state of emptiness where we can feel nothing. It was perhaps the time I was boasting about my love. When anybody has a beautiful and committed lover like mine, their state of happiness extended outside naturally which others falsely consider as boasting. It was when Susan told me, “Everybody comes across love at some or the other point of their life. It is not only you who experiences it,” I suddenly realized that I had exceeded and caused irritation to others. But I didn’t regret since she was nothing unnatural, and misunderstanding is the most precious gift to human beings which they flaunt from time to time. She could not feel what was inside me. Thus, her remarks submerged without making any ripples. I neither felt apologetic nor regretted since she did not occupy any important place in my heart. To me, it is heart and only the heart that matters. Only the emotions engulfed from the heart guide my life.

Life itself is a bunch of riddles and uncertain mental adventures. To somebody, you give attention you ever could though you are just a stranger to them. To some, you always try to get closer when your presence is neither recognized nor appreciated. Welcome is an indecent word to use here. Everything is happening around her; only she does not feel any. Such things had happened to me also. There were times when Susan was rather elated being with my company. She, sometimes, did not go for lunch along with her friends but instead stayed behind to give me a company. On the very first day of our meeting, I could see the excitement in her eyes when she was with me. Thanks to my ability to read other’s eyes. Sometimes, I warned myself for being an expert in reading eyes. I hate it because it discloses everything somebody values so much in their heart. I fear that someday, it will put me in real trouble. Though I was drowning in the thought of somebody, leaving no room for Susan to encroach beyond friendship, it will be unfair if I don’t concede that I also started liking her company. Call it a coincidence in life or the plan of destiny; I fell in love only with beautiful girls. May be I was so much drown with my love or partly because of not-so-beautiful looks of Susan, there were never mental conflicts and sleep-lost nights.

Time passed by, and our friendship or relationship blossomed or developed. I started learning new lessons of nature. I never thought that my meeting with Susan during that one-month long seminar will teach me a life-long lesson. I suddenly discover that all the charming beauties of the spring season were once remained dry and dead in winter. When spring comes, everything becomes beautiful. Who could believe that the delicate roses were only thorns before they steal beholders’ hearts? Sometimes, somewhere I started missing her. I fear that I developed an infatuation for Susan. But, I believe in my self-control ability. Time has taken a U-turn, partly because of my impatience. I had started waiting her instead of she waited for me. It might be because I came out earlier than the time she came out to wait for you. It takes 365 days for the Earth to revolve around the Sun. May be I valued my time so much that things started suddenly as one month was all we had at hand. But when things started, twenty days were gone already. Somewhere in this uncertain and dark journey of life, I realized that I had developed a strange feeling for Susan. One day, I looked at her eyes to see again the excitement reflected in her eyes on our first meeting or during those new days in our life. Everything has its own time and they just follow when their turns come. Who can get away from the cycle of the nature? When there is spring here, unfortunately there is autumn also somewhere. That day, I found a difference in her eyes. Her eyes were really beautiful but the beauty had replaced their excitement that I saw last time. But the beauty of a thing is appreciated only by the beholders, and the thing has nothing to with them. Who could imagine that there will be a sudden onset of autumn in the middle of the spring? It was possible, possibly because, things were happening at such a fast pace that even the God of nature could not see the disorder in the cycles of nature. That day, my fear is over and my mastery of eyes reading paid off. When somebody realizes that he develops an infatuation of somebody, there is always a problem arising somewhere. But, I don’t condemn this because I always consider nothing can be as precious as love, and it is never easy to achieve it. As time passed by with various thoughts, I realized that all I had at hand was only one week. After that, our one month conference will be over. I wish I could hold time. By then, I had completely lost my identity- Who was I? Where did I belong?

That night was over last day together. Early next morning, everybody will return to their home. As usual, Susan and I came to sit in the garden after dinner. Once I had developed love of her, each evening we sat on the garden meant a lot to me. But that day, it was more valuable and I am sure she could see through what was in my heart if she were good or least good at reading eyes like me. That day, with one last hope to see that excitement in her eyes, I looked at her again. To my surprise, there were in front of me. I saw the same excitement that I saw on the first day, but I could also see emotions in her eyes at that starry night. It might be because she also knew, as I did, that we will not meet again. Everybody develops emotions when they are leaving somebody for long, so if they leave somebody forever, definitely even for the person who does not mean anything to them will generate some emotions if they are not just strangers. That night, she listened to my story very anxiously. I didn’t know why I told the story of my hard childhood, broken love, and misfortunes to her. Was she listening anxiously like that since it was a sad story? “In life, we don’t get everything that we like. So, it is best to let this life take us wherever it wants to brings us,” Susan said after listening to my story. It was her last word I heard. I don’t like the idea to surrender my life to somebody like this, especially it makes very hard to a person like me who does not believe in reincarnation. But when for everything I do, destiny has the other plan, I finally learn to surrender my life reluctantly. It also gives respite, thinking one burden is gone. May be, since I no longer bear the burden of my life, my ownership may be reinstated once He realizes it.

Life is really beautiful in darkness. Both tears and laughter make your world really beautiful. It is made more beautiful particularly when your life is distinct since nobody knows what you are going through. Sometimes the pain is so big that its disappearance is measured not in terms of days or weeks but in terms of years. Today after five years, her words, “Everybody comes across love at some or the other point of their life. It is not only you who experiences it,” still deafen my ears, louder and clearer. For a while she used to say we will meet again, but I always told her the world is not round at least between you and me. And it’s right, we haven't meet after that night again. As I strongly believe that I won’t see her again, I also can confidently say that even after another five years, the sound of her words will not lower. She was itself a ray that brightens my life. But how could she know that she I have dissolved myself in the beauty of this her glittering darkness? I always told her “The world is so big. How hard you try, you will not be able to understand everything.” Today also, there are many things happening in my life around her thoughts when I don’t even know that where she is. Like every ray of light, she brought brightness in my life, but when the light disappears as truth prevails at the end; my whole life has been dissolved in the darkness she brought to me.

Things that the United States has to learn from Pakistan and Iran

Pakistan has been under gruesome turmoil for years since General Musharraf staged military coup in the country, and 2007 was the worst year with maximum suicide attacks, bombings, and casualties including the former prime minister. There has been hunger for democracy since then. Benazir Bhutto was the last hope to restore democracy, and also the only hope for the US to make power sharing with its ally Mushaffaf at the backstage. The assassination of Bhutto is the loss of hope not only for the people of Pakistan but also for the US. There is a cloud of suspicion and hidden hands of intelligence services in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and the Musharraf’s government changing statement from time to time about the killing has only intensified suspicion. However, as usual, President Musharraf will come out from this controversy also as he has his hand-picked men starting from the Chief Justice to the General. It is not a secret that Pervez Musharraf has been benefiting thousands and millions of dollars from the US. The recent US intelligence reports have found that the billions of dollars the US has been pouring to Pakistan for fighting terrorism have been wrongly used. Instead of financing to fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, Pakistan is using this money to consolidate its weaponry to keep at par with its arch-enemy India. With Pakistan backsliding both in the fighting of terrorism and restoring democracy in military strife country, the US is considering to reevaluate its foreign policy in that country. It is time for the US to learn that even billions of dollars is not worthy to make (or buy) a good friend and ally who can guarantee the security of the country. Now, the question is how long the US will support the country that is discredited in every count, and pressurized by both internal and external forces.

On the other hand, on December 3, 2007, the US National Intelligence Estimate report cleared Iran the charge of pursuing nuclear weapon development program. The report disclosed that Iran had stopped pursuing the nuclear weapon program in 2003. The finding was a huge setback for the Bush administration because it was the only excuse for Bush to launch military operation in Iran. It was also the only hope for President George Bush to regain the loss of public faith over Iraq where no nuclear weapon was found after the invasion. Iranian President Mahmoud Abbas welcome the US report and described the finding as a victory for Iran. However, President Bush was still adamant and reluctant to admit the mistake, and continues to stick on his stubbornness – Iran was a danger to its own people and the world, and it is still a danger and will remain a danger. Charging a country as engaging in nuclear program has become a new technique for the US to conduct military operation in that country. Unlike its other defense strategies, this technique failed from the very onset making George Bush the most discredited and untrusting president in the history of the US. The Iraq and Iran experiences are enough to retreat from launching military operation in other countries with an excuse of finding nuclear weapons.

Blockbuster - Baby on sale for Rs. 100

I came across a story of a woman peddling her newborn daughter at Rs. 100 in the front page of the Indian Express. The heading caught my attention at once- be its bizarreness or serious social disparity. The maternity ward in the Government Rajaji Hospital, Madurai in Tamil Nadu has become some kind of a theater running a blockbuster movie where there is a huge crowd and long queue to get tickets for the show. Crowds gather to see the strange saleswoman, Panju, who is selling her just-a-few-hours-ago-born daughter. She repeatedly keeps saying, “Take away my child and give me Rs. 100. How will I feed now and when she grows up? ” Dozens of people who gather to see the women are least concerned about the plight of the woman. Not even a single person among the crowd sheds sympathy by imagining how they will feel by selling their child. They just appear and disappear from the scene unconcerned and unbothered by the plight of the woman, but not before amusing her. Some good-hearted fellows give Panju advice and mental supports to help her bear the burden – become a domestic help. This is some advice that hardly affects Panju but it will affect beyond imagination to any normal humans. Such generous remarks and advice do not make any difference to dozens and hundreds of people like Panju whose ears are dampened by such sweet words they hear each new day from people they meet. Not even a single person among the crowd thinks of asking the plight of the woman. All they care is to experience the bizarre incident, but none realizes that bizarreness is the second step after tragedy. Panju actually tried to leave her child in the cradle at the hospital but the interception by a hospital’s watchman compelled her to take up this step. Situation is brought to somewhat normalcy when some women come for her rescue. Investigation has found that Panju’s husband passed away two months before from AIDS, and she also has HIV positive. Destiny led her to take up construction works in the seventh month of pregnancy. It is not known whether the new-born baby is also infected from the virus or not, and it will be known only after six weeks. When reality comes to the picture, the sea of crowds suddenly bears a devastated look. May be the audiences are too busy with their personnel works. For some, Panju’s story will make a nice dinner-time joke – selling a baby at Rs. 100. After few days or months, another heading – A woman consumed poison, kills daughter and self in Madurai- may fill the front paper of the same newspaper. By then, the same crowds who have gathered this morning in front of the hospital will not even remember that it is the same woman peddling her daughter. How can they remember her since they don’t even know the name of the saleswoman? It will be just another news of the day. We can’t even imagine of the separation of our dear ones, hence Panju’s selling her daughter turns out to be a great joke. When things are beyond the reach of our imagination, they become jokes. It is rather funny how the bridge between the rich and the destitute has been built naturally, and how two different species are made look-alike. We are also not wrong because we have the conscience to understand that these people are getting used to bear such pains. The world will wear a new look when our conscience discovers something new someday that people like Panju also have similar hopes or even bigger than ours.

The Beach

Beach never lacks visitors.
Be its generosity or indiscriminative nature,
It is the perfect host for everyone.
Everyone comes here with purposes.
Brothers, sisters, and friends are splashing water to each other.
Young boys are daring waves.
Loving couples are gently walking in water with arm to arm
With no worry for anything,
Some for forgetting the past pains and memories.
Some for building future pains.
Some are sitting silently donning silent viewers.
And somewhere, somebody is weeping for no reason
Wondering what fate and life conspire and take him towards.
The darkness and the generosity of the beach give him the warmest hospitality
To shed tears peacefully.