Open-minds open hearts

Amidst the rhythmic chiming of the wall clock, and the chaotic mutters and murmers among my fellow pupils that slipped through my ears, I drowsily leaned over the desk before me, falling asleep in a moment and uneasily waking up in the other.  My vision resembled that of a dilated eye, for the figures that moved across me appeared to infuse into one another to form a canopy of colors. It was half past noon, as we awaited the teacher, Ms. Priya, to arrive for the attendance check, post-lunch. Students who had arrived were settling into their seats, gradually. Some, who were still hungry, were chewing their tie off its fabric while drooling. It was my first day of school after a long eventful summer. As the cool stream of air that periodically diffused through the window beside me, eased me in that somnolent state, those moments of summer, filled with joyful exuberance began flashing into my mind. I gently pulled my arms and legs closer to me to feel warmer as I ...

Draining away the last bits of emotion from his sweat drenched body, the coldest of showers impinged and pierced his dry, cracked and torn bits of skin that resembled loose bits of soil after a dry absorbing summer. His vision that was fuzzy turned hazier, as pain that squeezed out of his heart oozed out as tears from his eyes and refused to cease. Numb lay his palms on his bent knees. His frozen finger tips and ears resembled chopped beets with little tactile sense. His tongue distinguished the distinct taste of blood that quietly slipped from the cracked lips of his, preserving it's identity among the salty drops of tears that rolled down his cheeks and drops of rain that dripped down his long hair. There he stood, on the top of a cliff, gasping, as his lungs screamed for breath, on a cold winter evening, after his first 20k run. He felt his heart that pounded relentlessly to break the shackles of sorrow that stripped him of his naivety. His legs succumbed and jolted like plucke...

Often, I observe that the disposition used to address successful people features words such as "reason", "will power", "hard work", to quote a few. I appealed to several of those during my job interviews. I understood the literal meaning of many such words but didn't quite realize them or fully comprehend the inter-laid interplay between them. In the process of finding an answer, I tried to draw a one-one relation between things/ideas that I am familiar with and those unfamiliar to me, for it is an instinctive prerogative of an average human being.  For instance, what is "reason", what is "will power", "what is conscience" and how are they related? The eureka moment bestowed upon me on a Saturday morning as I sipped a cup of hot and spicy tea while listening to mellifluous melody. If I see reason as the engine that drives me, then will power becomes the fuel that drives that reason and conscience becomes the second law th...

Six months into my first job and towards the end of my "no worries" period post graduation, as the cloud of wilderness begins to loom over the skies of mundanity, poignant thoughts about "where am I heading?" struck me like the billows of an unsettled sea. I am not alien to such emotions, however these were palpably unignorable. I felt an unusual disconcert, every night, as these feelings pinched me. I began to realize that I stand at that cross road of my life, where I have two choices. One, to go with the flow as I have done so far with a few maneuvers then and now, with the delusion of the turbulence to laminarize with time. Two, to pursue my ambition for it will haunt a man with reason and conscience. I begin to contemplate in the midst of this rendezvous with subconsciousness if I had the will power to pursue my ambition passionately, if I choose to. I resolved to start this blog to pen down my views, ideas and emotions, for writing, as a medium of expressio...