A little Surprise…

On a dark Friday evening

when nebulous clouds eclipsed the sun,

tired and exhausted me

waited on the roadside for a bus to come.

Desperate to reach home

where the weekend was awaited,

my eyes glittered up

at the very first sight of it.

It came within 5 mins,

my whim got stronger,

gladly I jumped into it,

thanking God for not making me

wait any longer.

But before the Volvo could actually take off,

traffic became a lot loud.

There was no accident,

it was a routine halt.

Traffic just crawled

and frustrated me with every stop.

“It’s a 10 mins affair”,

I had convinced myself.

But darn this 2 Km stretch,

BDA created the mess themselves.

As I oscillated to and fro

with every press of accelerator and brake,

I decided to divert my attention

from the galaxy of traffic ahead.

My eyes rolled down to the left,

fury arouse deep in the chest,

now I wanted to shout at the top of my lungs-

“Wat da hell!!!”,

at the sight of the lump bikers

who were riding on the pavement.

My eyes had witnessed in past,

a wriggler biker

riding on the pavement,

coming from behind, stumbling,

tumbling, failing to avoid

an accident with an ambler

on his left hand side.

Uhhh… aaahhh… ooyyyyeeee…

He crashed into him.

Ambler reacted late-

"What was that?,

for god's sake".

With his butt

in the puddle of mud

he ended up with his elbows bruised.

What was the biker thinking??

It wasn't a Tour de France

neither it was some kinda cruise!!!

That ambler was no one else but me.

“These bikers should be taught a lesson” -

this feeling had inundated in me.

As they mended the rules

in their own way,

I could still see them

making the pavement a freeway.

But when everyone was just ignoring their vice,

there awaited an unanticipated surprise.

Near the junction where sidewalk finished,

the traffic police was on a high!!

Baffled with the unforeseen encounter,

bikers found themselves busted.

The keys were in thullas’ hands,

their joyride had an ugly exit.

Staring at each other without a clue,

Hoping to find an excuse or something new,

their hands reached the pockets,

Ohh the scene was so cool!!!

With papers and money in their hands,

they struggled to convince their new dads.

For all the crooked driving they did,

they deserved this payback.

Evil smile was on my face,

satiable relief in my mind,

I just couldn’t stop lauding the police,

My words were for the dignified-

“Whatever be the reason,

Out of the louche morality

How can the bangalore police be so responsible??

Don’t know on whose behest they acted,

be it their moral or greed,

They taught a good lesson to the bikers,

rightly that's what i needed!!”

Suddenly out of the blues,

the cops gave me a reason to smirk.

But it didn't last long

as the patrol was a temporal work.

I fear it will not be the same.

The vitiation of laws will be there again.

The stupid bikers will

continue riding on the pavements,

where I shall never walk again.

This is Mein Teil...

Writing about ‘The things I love about myself’ had never been my wish, but Aditi’s Tag tales left me with this unforeseen consequence and now there is no escape. As I am a newbie, it took me sometime to absorb the significance of being ‘tagged’. And I realized that it’s nothing but like getting an OscarJ. I never knew that the blog world regards tagging with such an honour and respect. I just got famous I think :P. People want to know about me. Wow!! So, the tame celebrity in me is out with a bang!! ;). Thus, by acknowledging the honour given to me by Aditi, I hereby bring a piece of introspection that took a week to be penned.

Disclaimer: Before I start, I will like to point out that I will try my level best to evade the extinction of modesty and humility in this post ;). For better understanding, any outrageous and indigestible brag shall be regarded as a pure truth!! J

So, here are the five things I adore about myself!!

1. I love the fact that my mind is a placid place where the door is open for thoughts to come in and move out. I am not prone to a chronicle disease known as short- temper. Neither had I ever observed any turbulence in my cerebrum. Of course, so no incident of brain crash has been reported till date ;). These qualities have kept me away from any unintended incongruous acts. Also this perpetually spawns: ‘Think before acting’ policy in me. I have hardly been involved in any affrays. Now that’s not luck (I have been stressed to limits in some situations but I never gave in, nada exceptions exist). I will not mind if this leads me to a Nobel Peace prizeJ.
2. I am Agnostic. And I love being like this. I think it makes me a better human being. Most of the hatred in the world today is a direct consequence of difference in opinion about God and due to shibboleths speaking of religious leaders. I believe in one quote- “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion”. God is ‘OPTIMISM’ for me and nothing more. I prefer believing in myself and being dedicated to human beings rather than piously and irrationally devoting myself to some stoned-idols.
3. I love being real. One can imagine a lot of things but, I will love to see them being applied to the real world. My taste of movies reflects this fact. Thus, the matter-of -fact movies like ‘The hunting party’, ‘Rendition’, ‘A Wednesday’, ‘Page3’ and ‘The last king of Scotland’ are in my favourites' list. I can’t take on any arbitrary stuff shown on T.V. which is deprived off all the sense and sensibility just for the sake of entertainment. My realistic mindset also gifted me with pragmatic approach towards life. Also, it had a direct impact on my reading. I read about world affairs, history, facts, truth and Ok ok... enough on this, I will move to the next point; please don’t start yawningJ.
4. Apropos the points above, many of you may form an image of a serious and sophisticated ‘Ashish’. Well if you did then stop day dreamingJ. Ask those who talk to me for some 3-4 hrs daily. Ask those who love hanging out with me. Ask those who are the most indispensable assets of my life. Yah, I am talking about my friends. I love them. And the perpetual ‘single’ status of mine makes me to love them even moreJ. My energy levels experience a great transition when I am with them. It’s like if someone fed me with Licorice candies ;). The all grown up Ashish becomes an irritating and funny character with them. They have always enlightened me with the other side of me. It’s a kind of self discoveryJ. See, that’s why my friends are so vital for me ;). And what do I do to alleviate their debt?? I just dedicate myself to themJ.
5. I am ambitious and have got plans for my future. I can say that ‘I am making my life’ and I don’t want it to be the other way around. I am awed by the self believe that I have in myself and the confidence that has spawned from itJ. I think I am sitting at the niche of my career and am optimistic about the future. And if you think I am over confident about my career then don’t worry; recession is always there to bring me back down to earthJ.

Ok that’s itJ. I think I have viciously broken all the barriers of modesty today. It was arduous. I will never want to do it again even if all were 200% trueJ. Well now is the time to challenge some of my mind boggling bloggers. So, I tag the following:

1) Supratim: There is a reason why girls are so besotted with you; kindly enlighten us in this regard ;).

2) Shokeen: Shokeendi it’s your turn now. Deekha de duniya ko ki tu kya cheez hai :P.

3) Aravinda : Drunken Haze, I am waiting for your reincarnation after the hangoverJ !!

I hope you guys will write soon. I will be waiting. And yah, thank you Aditi for tagging, I need your comments on this. Adios!!!

An Agnostic says...

Last month world witnessed the horror of two air plane crashes that no one expected would come in such a small period of time. They have been catastrophic for Air France and for the families of some 450 people who witnessed their loved ones haplessly disappearing in the blue waters from where there was no return. Air France flight 447 and Comros Airbus310 both were ill fated with bad weather conditions and both went down in the oceans leaving no escape for the passengers. But as no single victim from Air France flight was lucky to survive, a 13 yr. old teen from Comros flight miraculously survived the ordeal and she remains the only known survivor to be rescued from the second crash of the month.

Miracle it was. Yeah that’s what everyone thinks. And so was the heading on one of the article on http://www.timesonline.co.uk - ‘Miracle survivor of Comoros Airbus crash tells of rescue from Indian Ocean wreckage’. The most intriguing things about this article were not in the content but in the comments section below. Here is an account of what i read in that section.

The comments started with a lady thanking God outrageously for saving the girl’s life. She was then followed by a bunch of theists who were thinking in the same line and thanking God. I had a wide smile on my face reading their thanksgiving speeches.

The chain of thanksgiving got broke when a comment from Roy said – ‘If God did it, why didn't he save the other 153 on the plane? It's got nothing to do with God at all’. Hmm pretty logical, I thought. Surely this guy is an atheist, I realized. But what I think didn’t matter at all because after this the comment section on the miraculous teen’s story became a battlefield for the theists and the atheists. The Jesus’ and Allah-uh-Akbar’s posts were now followed by aesthetics of hate. ‘I don't understand how people bleat on about God saving this one young girl when 152 others souls were condemned to an early death!!! ‘- said an atheist. Then a theist replied –‘ GOD: was, is & will forever be. 1000 yr's in human time is but a spec of a moment to GOD. How can mere mortals even comprehend this being, except to read his holy word and praise him? It could've been much worse. Yet he saved this girl’. Hmm impressive?? Well then what about this comment by an atheist scientist–‘How exactly is her survival beyond the realms of science? Even if the chances of surviving such a crash are one in a million then we would expect one person to survive for every 1 million who die. Nothing miraculous about it, just the way probability works. Well within the realms of science.’ ??Now when you get to see such a sexy rationalism then how you are not supposed to fall in love with Science? Isn’t everyone just amazing in defending his/her views? No doubt every human in that comment section was a genius in putting his/her subliminal theories.

But in between this utter cynicism, don’t you think all of them forgot one thing?? You may be or may not be thankful to God but why did you forget to thank the rescue team who actually saved the girl’s life? Aren’t they the heroes? They put their lives in danger to pull others out of danger. Those who question God’s existence or absence can’t question on the existence or absence of such heroes. So why are we all so indifferent to them? What if the rescue team would have arrived late or if the rescuer had not spotted the girl or he would have just ignored her for not risking his life into danger? Rescuers are the ones who come out of all the odds not for themselves but for the others. Even if the courage to survive was given by God to that girl or even if he was responsible for sending the rescuers in time, what is the harm in thanking and showing your sincere gratitude to them? God’s role is a never ending debate but the fact is that if the rescuers wouldn’t have arrived in time, it would have been a repetition of Air France 447’s story.

But when will man understand this? When will he understand that nothing can be proved about God but everything can be proved about a human? Why can’t we live in reality and stop worrying about someone whom we have never seen. We fight for him, we hate for him and we are blind for him. The blindfold of ignorance about God has deprived us from being loved by each other. And the irony is that people’s God had always wanted us to love each other. So, I am happy in keeping an agnostic point of view. It doesn't let me hate humans who are different. And if you have any doubts then believe this that at least it doesn’t let me ignore the role of rescuers and girl herself who were audacious enough to fight against death. Salute to the dauntless rescuers and the courageous girl who defied death together.