The Flame

This poem is dedicated to Manjunath Shanmugam, an IIM Lucknow graduate employed with IOC, who had to pay with his life for his effort to fight adulteration. To know more, please go to the Manjunath Shanmugam trust website.

The Flame

We all grow with that flame

The flame a guiding light

To oppose wrongs and injustice

To meet evil with all our might

This flame that we must nurture

Alas! We dim the same

Corruption, injustice and misplaced ethics

We fear to see ourselves in that state of shame

A few though, do hold their ground

Picking up many a strife

Walking undaunted on the path of righteousness

This journey, often at the cost of their life

Heroes they are, may their tribe increase

Their fame lives on in a story

They are not gone, but become immortal

As their flame burns forever in glory

Wake up !

There is this really weird thing about alarm clocks - they never work. Or rather, they never work on the person intended.

I have seen umpteen number of people go out and buy alarm clocks. Of course, this becomes much easier since everyone today carries an alarm clock in their cellphones. And these cellphone alarms can be tuned to play the noisiest and most irritating tunes ever! But to what use?

The owner of the alarm clock never ever wakes up. This I can confidently say considering my experiences with my roomies and hostel mates. One of my roomies had an alarm tune that was so loud that it could be heard in another continent, but it failed to wake that person up. Yet another roomie would not even bother to open an eyelid and put the ringing alarm to a snooze. In my hostel, every morning I wake up to hear alarm tones of my neighbours. And then I go and bang their doors so that they wake up.

I think it must be something similar to the snoring phenomenon. Like how the person snoring is never bothered or disturbed whereas no one else can sleep peacefully.

Anyways, probably by experience, the alarm clock owners have realised and resigned to the fact that atleast someone else around will wake up to that noise. Ah! As long as the purpose is served...

A Joyless Journey

A sailor lived by the high seas

A fable he once was told

Far away in the midst of the sea

Lay waiting a treasure of gold.

Set sail he did on his ship

With courage he left the shore

He knew he wanted to get there

Beyond which he knew no more.

He sailed and sailed his ship

Sailed with all his might

And one day so it happened

An island came into his sight.

It was a land of pristine beauty

Of beautiful sunshine and sparkling sand

Such beauty that one would feel

On earth, heaven had come to stand.

But this joy mattered not to the sailor

With disappointment and deject he left

The glitter of gold he sought

And he ended up feeling bereft.

He sailed and sailed afar

Many such lands he did see

When his treasure he didn't find

He left cursing their beauty.

Fierce and enormous, there came a storm

Against which the ship couldn't hold

Broke the ship into pieces

Drowning the sailor bold.

Reached the gate of God

And the sailor put his plea

"Oh Lord, one treasure I sought

Was it not meant for me?"

"Oh brave one", the voice replied

"The treasure that was meant for thee

Came to you many a time

You only should have enjoyed the journey."

Limerically yours - inspired by the exams!

This was created just before my midterms.

Exams I have from Monday

On books my mind doesn't stay

Subjects galore

Each one's a bore

Time to seek The Divine and pray!

Limerically yours

Actually the saga started when a friend of mine casually remarked about the interesting gtalk statuses composed by another friend. For some strange reason, I just had to make a limerick that day. Stayed up till quite some time to put some lines in place. Didn't manage anything even remotely decent though.. and slept off.

But had a small brainwave of sorts the next day when I woke up. And this is the outcome of my efforts - my first ever limerick ! :-)

Tossing in his bed he lay awake

A limerick he wanted to make

The structure he knew fine

AABBA was the rhyme

So he just ended the poem with snake.

Actually what happened is that the influence was so strong that on day 2 I came up with one more limerick. That went thus -

There was a young man from Kent

He would never pay his rent

The landlord lost his cool

Chucked out the young fool

So now the poor chap lives in a tent.

Hehe. I quite enjoyed writing these actually. One good thing about limericks is that they are essentially about humor. Another better thing is that they allow you a lot of creative freedom in terms of choosing fictional names, situations, stories, exaggerations, etc. Will try to come up with some more in future.

The Travails of Train Travel

Although the posts are quite scarce, the tenor of my blog seems to be drifting more towards something like 'Remorse Ramblings' than 'Casual Chronicles'! This one would be an attempt to make the mood lighter.

Local trains are ubiquitous to the life of almost every Mumbaikar. Aptly are they called the lifeline of the city. The city would be paralysed if they stop functioning. The amount of load they take is phenomenal.

However, it has its price. It is not easy to go through a "peak hour train journey" mate! Let me present from my personal diaries... some travails of the train travel.

1. kitney aadmi they(hai??... rahenge??..)!!!!

A single bogey of the train has the capacity to take around 300-400 passengers (easily seated or enough space to stand). Typically trains have 9/12 bogies each. And there is a train every 3/5 min. And there are three lines - Western, Central, Harbour.

AND still, every train goes PACKED - atleast about 2000 passengers in each bogey!!

The amount of crowd in a train is simple unbelievable... Lord Krishna might have run out of Sari material for Draupadi, but Mumbai never seems to run out of people...!

2. (be)sur(a)-das

Imagine - barely some space to stand. Both your feet are in some different orientation; which may be totally different from the orientation of your body. No way you can move any part of your body by even a centimeter. But you still manage to find an equilibrium in this situation... and just then he arrives... the Indian Idol!! I have particular ill luck in these situations, the worst people 'singing' right into my ear! And the worst part, they have earphones plugged in to ensure protection from the self inflicted torture. :-S

3. mohe rang de basanti

Sometimes you are just happy to get the rare window seat. You hope for the breeze to be fast and nice. Till the paan-spitter comes. The paan-spitter typically never has a window seat himself. He will usually occupy the centre seat. And then in one swift motion, lean over and launch the missile of red tobacco spit. You pray the missile does not fall midway. And of course, your hopes suddenly shift to wishing the breeze to be slow so that the droplets don't come onto you.

4. pelvis press-lee

If there are 2 things that are conspicuously absent in the etiquette books for Indian men, they are

a) scratching the crotch

b) adjusting the undies

Usually, it is just a disgusting sight to look at if it happens in front of you. But trust me, when it happens in the crowds of a local train, with the culprit shamelessly barging in your personal space, you have NO reason to be happy unless you are gay.

5. the mahesh bhatt syndrome

This one is easy to guess for you all. The guy sitting/standing beside you has an opinion on anything and everything. Right from politics to sports to films to the other co-passengers around. And of course, he will make sure he is heard by everyone. Well, atleast with the television, you can switch it off...

6. :-( :-(

If this would have been a happy story, I would have said this is the icing on the cake. But since the events are quite the opposite, please imagine an appropriate contrasting comparison. (crap on the puke maybe?).

I ran into a running train to grab a seat for myself. Happily I get one. Happily I sit. Happily another person sits to my left. And thats where the happiness for me ended. The most unbelievably disgusting thing - the person on MY left raised HIS RIGHT ass and FARTED! :-( :-( .. arghh!!!!